Mouse Femoral Artery Wire Injury Model

Male mice in 8–12-week-old were anesthetized for 1 min with 2% isoflurane in oxygen, and the maintenance dose during the operation was 1% isoflurane in oxygen. After disinfection and depilation in the left lower limbs of the mice, the left femoral artery was isolated by blunt dissection under a surgical microscope. The distal artery was looped with a 6–0 nylon suture, and a 0.38 mm guide wire (Cook Inc, Bloomington, IN) was inserted into the arterial lumen through an arteriotomy in the distal perforating branch. The wire was left in the artery for 2 min to denude the artery and was carefully removed. The right femoral artery was used as the sham group. The nylon suture was released to restore the blood flow, and the opening was sutured with a 6–0 nylon suture. The mice were placed on a heating blanket until recovery, and the femoral arteries were collected after 28 days.
The mouse femoral artery injury model was also performed with or without the U0126 treatment. U0126 was purchased from Selleck (S1102) and dissolved in dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) to a concentration of 0.1 mg/mL. It was injected intraperitoneally into mice every 3 days (1 mg/kg) after wire injury. The dose of U0126 was determined based on a previous study [18 (link)]. The control group was injected with a similar volume of DMSO.