Laser doppler perfusion imaging serial assessment of hindlimb perfusion.

<p>(a) Representative laser doppler perfusion imaging scans of rats treated with intramuscular injections of plasmids encoding for human Angpt-1 alone (-□-, n = 7), Angpt-2 alone (-○-, n = 8), VEGF alone (-Δ-, n = 9) or combination of Angpt-1+VEGF (-□-, n = 8), Angpt-2+VEGF (-○-, n = 7). Controls received null plasmid (-Δ-, n = 9). Animals were imaged on days 0, 7 and 35 after surgically-induced left hindlimb ischemia. Blood flow is displayed by color-coded pixels where blue indicates low perfusion and red-white denotes high perfusion. Assessment of perfusion was performed on the lower leg and foot. (b) A serial quantitative evaluation of hindlimb blood perfusion expressed as a ratio of ischemic leg perfusion to that in the non-ischemic contralateral limb (I/NI) is shown for all single gene transfer groups. Combination gene transfer groups are shown in (c). (d) The increment in perfusion recovery (%) from day 7 (time of gene injection) to day 35. ^* denotes p<0.05 versus controls and Angpt-1 treated. # denotes p<0.05 versus VEGF and Angpt-2 treated animals.