Ultrasound biomicroscopy validation of a murine model of cardiac hypertrophic preconditioning: comparison with a hemodynamic assessment.

In mice, myocardial hypertrophic preconditioning (HP), which is produced by the removal of short-term transverse aortic constriction (TAC), was recently reported to render the heart resistant to hypertrophic responses induced by subsequent reconstriction (Re-TAC). However, there is no efficient noninvasive method for ensuring that the repeated aortic manipulations were successfully performed. We previously demonstrated that ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) is a noninvasive and effective approach for predicting TAC success. Here, we investigated the value of UBM for serial predictions of load conditions in establishing a murine HP model. C57BL/6J mice were subjected to a sham operation, TAC, or Re-TAC, and the peak flow velocity at the aortic banding site (PVb) was measured by UBM. Left ventricular end-systolic pressure (LVESP) was examined by micromanometric catheterization. The PVb was positively associated with LVESP ( = 0.8204, < 0.001, for TAC at 3 days and = 0.7746, < 0.001, for Re-TAC at 4 wk). PVb and LVESP values were markedly elevated after aortic banding, became attenuated to the sham-operated level after debanding, and increased after aortic rebanding. The cardiac hypertrophic responses were examined by UBM, histology, RT-PCR, and Western blot analysis. Four weeks after the last operation, with PVb ≥ 3.5 m/s as an indicator of successful aortic constriction, Re-TAC mice showed less cardiac hypertrophy, fetal gene expression, and ERK1/2 activation than TAC mice. Therefore, we successfully established a UBM protocol for the serial assessment of aortic flow and the prediction of LVESP during repeated aortic manipulations in mice, which might be useful for noninvasive evaluations of the murine HP model. We successfully developed an ultrasound biomicroscopy protocol for the serial assessment of aortic bandings and the relevant left ventricular pressure in a murine model of cardiac hypertrophic preconditioning. The protocol may be of great importance in the successful establishment of the hypertrophic preconditioning model for further mechanistic and pharmacological studies.