In Vivo Ultrasound Imaging of Angiotensin II-Induced Hypertension

The UK4b compound used was synthesized as previously discussed^{36 (link)}. All animal experiments described here were performed with the approval of the University of Kentucky Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC #2019-3373) and in accordance with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals from National Institutes of Health/Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare (NIH/OLAW), and were in fact also consistent with the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting of In Vivo Experiments) guidelines (https://arriveguidelines.org). Animals were housed in the University of Kentucky DLAR facilities inside clean cages with ad libitum access to normal chow and water. Buprenorphine, ketamine, and xylazine were purchased from Covetrus (Dublin, Ohio, USA). Angiotensin II (AngII) was purchased from VWR (Radnor, PA, USA). ALZET Osmotic Pumps (model 2004) were purchased from Braintree Scientific (Braintree, MA, USA).
In vivo ultrasound imaging was done using a Vevo 3100 Ultrasound (Fujifilm VisualSonics, Inc.) and data analyzed using VevoLAB software (Fujifilm Visualsonics, Inc.) whose use was provided by the University of Kentucky Cardiovascular Research Priority Area. PGE₂ was measured using the commercially available enzyme linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) kit (catalog #514531) from Cayman Chemical (Ann Arbor, MI).