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. 2013 Aug 6;3:2366. doi: 10.1038/srep02366

Figure 3. Arterial gene delivery and endothelial recovery of bioactive stents implanted in balloon injured dog femoral arteries.

Figure 3

(a) Experimental procedure for the in vivo experiment in canine model. The femoral artery was first isolated from the normal blood flow using clips (a. i). The selected portion was then injured by balloon catheter (a. ii). This was followed by the implntation of the stent in the damaged artery (a. iii). (b) Vegf transgene delivery delivery and expression in the artery. RT-PCR of tissue retrieved from stented vessel segments was performed to identify the hVegf gene. 2 weeks post stent implantation in Coated (+) group, the Vegf transcript was still present in the proximal (P), middle (M) and distal (D) portions of the stented artery. But no gene delivery occured in the artery sections 1 cm proximal (P′) and distal (D′) to the stented portion. Importantly, the transcript also disappeared in Coated (+) group by week16 confirming the transient nature of expression. (c) Immunohistochemical localization of Vegf within stented femoral artery in Coated (+) group at week 2 post stent deployment. Coated (−) was taken as control. The Vegf expression occurred mainly at the strut area (white dotted) where the stent surface touched the inner lining of the artery, with no significant expression in the neointimal area indicating that the gene transfer from stent surface occurred only at the very early stage of deployment. (d) Re-endothelialization of vessels following stent implantation. SEM pictures of the stents on week 16. Vessels from Coated (−) group lacked endothelial cell morphology between struts, while endothelial cell monolayer completely covered the stent surface with typical fusiform morphology and intact borders in Coated (+) group. (e) Re-endothelialization of arterial tissue sections in different stents at week 16 post stent deployment by histological assessment of. The data represent the mean ± SD (n = 8). ANOVA: *** = P < 0.001 and * = P < 0.05, while P value on comparing Coated (+) and Coated (−) in (D) is denoted by ψ.