An ex-vivo model for evaluating bioenergetics in aortic rings

•Cardiovascular disease is a primary cause of mortality and morbidity in developed societies.•Atherosclerosis is a common cause of cardiovascular disease, and manifests in the vasculature.•Mitochondrial damage has been linked to the early events of atherogenesis; therefore an improved means for assessing mitochondrial function in vascular tissues is of interest.•Current bioenergetics methods in vascular tissues are limited to transformed or cultured primary cells, or alternatively, isolated preparations of mitochondria.•A novel method for ex vivo ascertainment of mitochondrial bioenergetics in aortic tissue is presented.

Cardiovascular disease (CVD) is the leading cause of death worldwide and it exhibits a greatly increasing incidence proportional to aging. Atherosclerosis is a chronic condition of arterial hardening resulting in restriction of oxygen delivery and blood flow to the heart. Relationships between mitochondrial DNA damage, oxidant production, and early atherogenesis have been recently established and it is likely that aspects of atherosclerotic risk are metabolic in nature. Here we present a novel method through which mitochondrial bioenergetics can be assessed from whole aorta tissue. This method does not require mitochondrial isolation or cell culture and it allows for multiple technical replicates and expedient measurement. This procedure facilitates quantitative bioenergetic analysis and can provide great utility in better understanding the link between mitochondria, metabolism, and atherogenesis.

Graphical abstractEx-vivo, minimal sample manipulation, same day data acquisition.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide