Baltimore VA Medical Center 2 articles published in JoVE Biology Murine Aortic Crush Injury: An Efficient In Vivo Model of Smooth Muscle Cell Proliferation and Endothelial Function Dan Yu1,4, George Makkar2, Rajabrata Sarkar2,3,4, Dudley K. Strickland2,3,4, Thomas S. Monahan1,2,4 1Department of Surgery, Baltimore Veterans Affairs Medical Center, 2Department of Surgery, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 3Department of Physiology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 4Center for Vascular and Inflammatory Diseases, University of Maryland School of Medicine Restenosis following cardiovascular procedures (bypass surgery, angioplasty, or stenting) is a significant problem reducing the durability of these procedures. An ideal therapy would inhibit smooth muscle cell (VSMC) proliferation while promoting regeneration of the endothelium. We describe a model for simultaneous assessment of VSMC proliferation and endothelial function in vivo. Biology Methods to Discover Alternative Promoter Usage and Transcriptional Regulation of Murine Bcrp1 Karthika Natarajan1,2, Yi Xie1,3, Takeo Nakanishi4, Rebecca S. Moreci5,6, Pancharatnam Jeyasuria7, Arif Hussain1,3,8,9, Douglas D. Ross1,3,8,9,10,11 1Greenebaum Cancer Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, 2Pharmaceutical Sciences, University of Maryland School of Pharmacy, 3Baltimore VA Medical Center, 4Membrane Transport and Biopharmaceutics, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Kanazawa University, 5Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Science, University of Pittsburgh, 6 With the murine ABC transporter Bcrp1 (Abcg2) as an example, in-silico protocols are presented to detect alternative promoter usage in genes expressed in mouse tissues, and to evaluate the functionality of the alternative promoters identified using reporter assays.
