Morphological changes in the rat aorta endothelium at the clamping sites

Abstract

This study aimed to investigate on en face preparations the morphological changes in the rat aorta endothelium at the clamping sites while performing surgical anastomosis.Adult male Wistar rats (14-18-month-old, 390-420g) were used for the experiments. Under surgical anesthesia, the postrenal part of the abdominal aorta was dissected, clamped proximally and distally, cut and restored microsurgically using 10-0 suture. The clamping time was 30-40 min. At different days after surgery the animals were sacrificed, their aortas fixed and removed from the body and preparations for en face observation were made.En face preparations, obtained at the first postoperative day, showed complete denudation of the clamping sites. The most interesting endothelial cell population was noted at the borders of the clamping sites on the 3rd day after surgery - a large number of small endothelial cells and also few endothelial cells having very large size. At the later stages, the endothelial cell layer advanced rapidly to the denuded areas, as the complete restoration was observed after day 14