Abstract
Objectives
We report here on the pre-clinical MRI characterization of an apoE−/− mouse model of stable and vulnerable carotid artery atherosclerotic plaques, which were induced by a tapered restriction (cast) around the artery. Specific focus was on the quantification of the wall shear stress, which is considered a key player in the development of the plaque phenotype.
Materials and methods
In vivo MRI was performed at 9.4 T. The protocol consisted of time-of-flight angiography, high-resolution T1- and T2-weighted black-blood imaging and phase-contrast flow velocity imaging as function of time in the cardiac cycle. Wall shear stress was determined by fitting the flow profile to a quadratic polynomial.
Results
Time-of-flight angiography confirmed preservation of blood flow through the carotid arteries in all cases. T1- and T2-weighted MRI resulted in high-resolution images in which the position of the cast, luminal narrowing introduced by cast and plaque, as well as the arterial wall could be well identified. Laminar flow with low wall shear stress (11.2± 5.2 Pa) was measured upstream to the cast at the position of the vulnerable plaque. Downstream to the cast at the position of the stable plaque, the apparent velocities were low, which is consistent with vortices and an oscillatory nature of the flow.
Conclusions
Flow velocities and wall shear stress were successfully measured in this mouse model of stable and unstable plaque. The presented tools can be used to provide valuable insights in the pathogenesis of atherosclerosis.
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Acknowledgments
This study was funded in part by the BSIK program entitled Molecular Imaging of Ischemic Heart Disease (project number BSIK03033), by the EC-FP6-project DiMI, LSHB-CT-2005-512146, and by the Dutch Heart Foundation (NHS) project number 2006T106. Jo Habets and Leonie Niesen are acknowledged for biotechnical assistance.
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Open Access This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0), which permits any noncommercial use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author(s) and source are credited.
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van Bochove, G.S., Straathof, R., Krams, R. et al. MRI-determined carotid artery flow velocities and wall shear stress in a mouse model of vulnerable and stable atherosclerotic plaque. Magn Reson Mater Phy 23, 77–84 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-010-0200-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10334-010-0200-4