The Animal Core continues to provide the fundamental support to all PPG investigators in terms of providing services for hemodynamic measurements in rats, mice and calves. This includes mean, systolic and diastolic blood pressures in the pulmonary and systemic vasculature, cardiac outputs and right/ left ventricular function. The Core provides the expertise to measure these parameters in the anesthetized and awake animal models with various systems including the Millar catheter system, echocardiography, pressure filled transducers, and dye dilution method for cardiac output measurements. By providing a wide range of options for hemodynamic measurements the core insures that the individual experimental design can be matched to the appropriate data collection system encompassing all of investigators needs. In addition to hemodynamic services the Core also maintains and provides assistance with use of the hyperand hypobaric chamber facility. Historically, these chambers have been used for the study of pulmonary hypertension. Notably, The facility has recently expanded in size to ~400 sq ft. The hypobaric chambers are depressurized by individual vacuum pumps housed in a separate area. All chambers are equipped with automatic devices to return to ambient conditions in case of power failure. The hyperbaric chambers are pressurized by filtered compressed air and typically used to maintain animals at sea level pressure (760 mmHg). Besides providing technical (hemodynamic) and methodological (chambers) support the Core also assists with maintenance of breeding colonies for inbred mice and generation of tissue-specific knockout models. This includes maintenance of breeding colonies for inbred mice and generation of tissue-specific knockout models. The Core will assist investigators with the breeding, genotyping, and maintenance of these animal colonies as needed. In addition, the Animal Core will be involved in the generation of targeted knockout models. Specific to this proposal, investigators of this PPG project are generating inducible smooth musclespecific PTEN, PPARv, and CREB knockout mice
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