Crl nih foxn1rnu

All animal experiments were performed with the approval of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee. Male adolescent (6 week old) athymic rats (Crl:NIH-Foxn1^rnu) (~150 g) were obtained from Charles River Laboratories (Wilmington, MA). Nonischemic HF was induced by pulmonary artery banding (PAB) at 7–8 weeks old as previously described.^{18 (link)} Animals were randomized to treatment groups and 500,000 monolayer cultured CPCs (2D), or approximately 400 freshly formed (Day 0) CPC spheres (3D) totaling ~500,000 CPCs, were delivered two weeks after banding (Supplemental Figure I). To minimize potential differences between CPC donors, animals received injections containing equal parts of all child CPC populations. Cells were labeled with DiR (Thermo Fisher Scientific Life Sciences, Waltham, MA) per manufacturer’s protocol and cell retention was tracked using an IVIS Spectrum in vivo imager (Perkin Elmer, Waltham, MA). To evaluate RV function, echocardiography was performed on PAB and sham rats on the day of surgery, immediately after treatment 2 weeks later, and then every week thereafter up to 4 weeks after treatment. Data were collected and analyzed by blinded researchers. Additional details on randomization and blinding process are given in the Supplemental Methods. No animals were excluded from the analysis.

Healthy male nude NIH rats (Crl:NIH-Foxn1 rnu, Charles River, Germany) bread in a specific pathogen-free (SPF) animal care unit were fed sterile, irradiated food granules (V1246-703, Soest, Germany). Animal procedures were reviewed by the Animal Care and Use Committee of Pharmacy and Medicine University of Dijon or Oncodesign’s ethical committee.