Core B is responsible for the procurement, animal care, feeding, exercise training, and pathologic evaluation of experimental animals for all projects. Once animals arrive at the University of Missouri-Columbia (UMC), animal care and health monitoring will be accomplished by the combined efforts of personnel of the Office of Animal Resources (OAR), the Veterinary Medical Diagnostic Laboratory (VMDL), and Core B. Blood and other samples will be obtained by technicians and veterinary medical students under the supervision of OAR, VMDL, and Drs. Turk and Laughlin according to procedures described below. Animals will be fed a high fat and cholesterol (HFC) or normal (NF) diet and exercised by pre-veterinary and veterinary medical students under the supervision of OAR, David Harah, and Drs. Turk and Laughlin according to established procedures described below. Core B will analyze plasma triglycerides (TG), total cholesterol (TC), and low (LDL) and high density lipoprotein (HDL) cholesterol to evaluate the effects of the HFC diet. Core B will be responsible for treadmill performance tests prior to and after exercise training and biochemical analyses of skeletal muscle oxidative capacity to evaluate the efficacy of training. A complete postmortem examination and pathologic characterization of cardiovascular disease will be performed on all pigs by Dr. Turk. In addition, Core B will obtain male transgenic pigs in which endothelial nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) is overexpressed or knocked out as described below
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