Quadrature rat brain coil

ApoE -/-mice fed a high fat diet or control C57BL/6 wild type mice were terminally anesthetized by inhalation of isoflurane (Belamont, Nicholas Piramal Limited, London, UK). The aorta was exposed and immediately washed by intra cardiac injection of PBS heparin (3 mL, 50 UI/mL; Sanofi Aventis, Vitry sur Seine, France), followed by PBS alone (10 mL). Then a solution of either multivalent VUSPIO TEG4, VUSPIO IgG or PBS was injected through the left ventricle and incubated for 20 min before rinsing with PBS. The heart and aorta were then removed and fixed in paraformaldehyde (PFA) 4% v/v (Eurobio, Les Ulis, France) for subsequent imaging.
Fluorescence images were acquired using the Fluobeam 800 imaging device (Fluoptics, Grenoble, France), using 200 and 1000 ms exposure times.
After embedding in agarose gel (0.8% w/v) in a tube, high resolution MR imaging was performed on a horizontal 7 T Biospec system (Bruker, Ettlingen, Germany). A 72 mm birdcage resonator was used for RF transmission and the Bruker quadrature Rat Brain coil was used for RF reception. T 2 ⁎ maps were calculated from a RF spoiled multi gradient echo (MGE) images (repetition time TR = 1000 ms, first echo time TE = 3.2 ms, ΔTE = 3.6 ms, number of echoes = 15, α = 30°, spatial resolution = 0.075 2 × 0.25 mm 3 , NEx = 32, 12 slices).