Male C57BL6/J mice were purchased from Charles River (
https://www.criver.com, United Kingdom) and used for experiments at 12 weeks of age. Animals were housed in GM500 cages (Techniplast, Italy) with a 12-hour light/dark cycle and free access to standard chow diet and triple-filtered drinking water. Each cage contained a dome home and chew sticks as environmental enrichment. The animals were housed at a maximum of five per cage.
Midline laparotomy was performed under recovery isofluorane anesthesia and the aorta exposed using blunt dissection and PPE or saline applied to the aorta for 5 minutes, as described by Bhamidipati et al.
2 (link)
The peritoneal cavity was washed out three times with normal saline and the abdominal wall closed in layers with Vicryl sutures. Two independent cohorts of mice (cohort A and cohort B) were used in this study. Cohort A was used to assess observer variability in USS measurements. Cohort B was used to assess single APd
max/3D USS measurement sensitivity in detection of aortic dilation.
Animal work was performed in accordance with the UK Animals, Scientific Procedures Act 1986. This study was performed under existing institutional approval (the Home Office Project License PPL: P606320FB). All investigators undertook additional training to obtain Home Office personal animal licenses.
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