Coronary artery disease (CAD), or atherosclerosis, is responsible for nearly a third of all American deathsannually. Detection of plaques and differentiation of plaque stage remains a complicating factor for treatment.Classification of plaque before significant blockage or rupture could inform clinical decisions and prevent mortality.Current detection methods are either nonspecific, slow, or require the use of potentially harmful contrast agents. Recentadvances in hyperspectral imaging could be used to detect changes in the autofluorescence of arteries associated withvessel remodeling and subsequent plaque formation and could detect and classify existing lesions. Here, we present datacomparing spectral image characteristics of a mouse model designed to undergo vessel remodeling.C57Bl/6 mice underwent ligation of three of four caudal branches of the left common carotid artery (left externalcarotid, internal carotid, and occipital artery) with the superior thyroid artery left intact under IACUC approved protocol.Vessels were harvested at a variety of timepoints to compare degrees of remodeling, including 4 weeks and 5 monthspost-surgery. Immediately following harvest, vessels were prepared by longitudinal opening to expose the luminalsurface to a 20X objective. A custom inverted microscope (TE-2000, Nikon Instruments) with a Xe arc lamp and thinfilm tunable filter arrary (Versachrome, Semrock, Inc.) were used to achieve spectral imaging. Excitation scans utilizedwavelengths between 340 nm and 550 nm in 5 nm increments. Hyperspectral data were generated and analyzed withcustom Matlab scripts and visualized in ENVI. Preliminary data suggest consistent spectral features associated withcontrol and remodeled vessels.
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