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Aortic Stenosis Model

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Experimental Design and Aortic Stenosis Model All experiments and procedures were performed in accordance with the Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals published by the US National Institutes of Health and were approved by the Animal Ethics Committee, São Paulo State University (#198). Three- to four-week-old male Wistar rats weighing 90–100 g were anesthetized with a mixture of ketamine (50 mg/kg, i.p.) and xylazine (10 mg/kg, i.p.). A total of 10 rats were submitted to aortic stenosis surgery, which involved placing a 0.6-mm-i.d. stainless steel clip on the ascending aorta via a thoracic incision (29). A total of 5 age-matched control animals underwent left thoracotomy without clip placement (Sham group). The rats were housed in collective polypropylene cages (2 animals per cage) covered with metallic grids in a …show more content…

The animals were given standard rat chow (Labina; Purina, SP, Brazil) and water ad libitum. At 18 weeks after surgery, when the AS animals presented with cardiac dysfunction as measured by echocardiography, the AS animals were redistributed randomly into 2 groups: heart failure sedentary (HF-S, n = 5), in which the group of AS rats remained untrained over a 10-week period, and heart failure ET (HF-ET, n = 5), in which the AS rats that were subjected to 10 weeks of aerobic ET. The ET protocol is described in detail below. Previous data from our laboratory show that rats with AS start to exhibit evidence of heart failure approximately 21–25 weeks after surgery (59). Thus, after 28 weeks, all 3 groups underwent another

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