Department of Morphology, Faculty of Veterinary Medicine, Ghent University, Merelbeke, Belgium.
J Anat. 2010 May;216(5):563-71. doi: 10.1111/j.1469-7580.2010.01220.x. Epub 2010 Mar 19.
Although the murine thoracic aorta and its main branches are widely studied to gain more insight into the pathogenesis of human vascular diseases, detailed anatomical data on the murine aorta are sparse. Moreover, comparative studies between mice and men focusing on the topography and geometry of the heart and aorta are lacking. As this hampers the validation of murine vascular models, the branching pattern of the murine thoracic aorta was examined in 30 vascular corrosion casts. On six casts the intrathoracic position of the heart was compared with that of six younger and six older men of whom contrast-enhanced computer tomography images of the thorax were three-dimensionally reconstructed. In addition, the geometry of the human thoracic aorta was compared with that of the mouse by reconstructing micro-computer tomography images of six murine casts. It was found that the right brachiocephalic trunk, left common carotid artery and left subclavian artery branched subsequently from the aortic arch in both mice and men. The geometry of the branches of the murine aortic arch was quite similar to that of men. In both species the initial segment of the aorta, comprising the ascending aorta, aortic arch and cranial/superior part of the descending aorta, was sigmoidally curved on a cranial/superior view. Although some analogy between the intrathoracic position of the murine and human heart was observed, the murine heart manifestly deviated more ventrally. The major conclusion of this study is that, in both mice and men, the ascending and descending aorta do not lie in a single vertical plane (non-planar aortic geometry). This contrasts clearly with most domestic mammals in which a planar aortic pattern is present. As the vascular branching pattern of the aortic arch is also similar in mice and men, the murine model seems valuable to study human vascular diseases.
尽管鼠的胸主动脉及其主要分支被广泛研究，以更深入地了解人类血管疾病的发病机制，但关于鼠主动脉的详细解剖数据却很少。此外，缺乏针对心脏和主动脉的 topography 和 geometry 的比较研究，这些研究集中在老鼠和人类之间。由于这阻碍了鼠血管模型的验证，因此在 30 个血管腐蚀铸型中检查了鼠胸主动脉的分支模式。在六个铸型上，比较了胸腔内心脏的位置与六个年轻和六个年长男性的位置，其中六个男性的胸腔对比增强计算机断层扫描图像被三维重建。此外，通过重建六个鼠铸型的微计算机断层扫描图像，比较了人类和鼠的胸主动脉的 geometry。结果发现，在鼠和人类中，右头臂干、左颈总动脉和左锁骨下动脉均从主动脉弓连续分支。鼠主动脉弓分支的 geometry 与人类非常相似。在这两种物种中，主动脉的初始段，包括升主动脉、主动脉弓和降主动脉的颅/上部，在颅/上视图上呈弯曲状。尽管观察到鼠和人类胸腔内心脏的位置有些类似，但鼠心脏明显更偏向腹侧。本研究的主要结论是，在鼠和人类中，升主动脉和降主动脉并不位于单一垂直平面内（非平面主动脉 geometry）。这与大多数哺乳动物形成鲜明对比，在这些哺乳动物中存在平面主动脉模式。由于主动脉弓的血管分支模式在鼠和人类中也相似，因此鼠模型似乎对于研究人类血管疾病很有价值。
