Fig 1. Characterization of the peripheral artery disease (PAD) mouse models.
(A) Hindlimb blood flow in sedentary (open bars) and exercised (closed bars) C57BL/6 PAD (left) and KK-Ay PAD (right) mice 3 weeks after femoral artery ligation (FAL). In the exercise groups, mice were subjected to four 30-min treadmill exercise sessions. In the sedentary groups, no mice were subjected to exercise. Two-way ANOVA revealed significant reductions in blood flow after FAL (p < 0.01) in both C57BL/6 PAD and KK-Ay PAD mice. Data are expressed as the mean ± SD, n = 4 for sedentary and exercised sham-operated animals, and n = 8 for sedentary and exercised PAD animals. (B) Representative laser Doppler perfusion imaging 3 weeks after FAL surgery. Left, sham-operated sedentary KK-Ay mice; right, sedentary KK-Ay PAD mice. (C) Time course of recovery of the running performance after FAL surgery in exercised C57BL/6 PAD (left) and KK-Ay PAD (right) mice. Dashes represent the mean time to exhaustion for each session in C57BL/6 PAD mice (n = 24) and KK-Ay PAD mice (n = 30).