The Position- and Lymphatic Lumen-Controlled Tissue Chambers to Study Live Lymphatic Vessels and Surrounding Tissues ex Vivo

Abstract Background: Until now, there has been no tool available to provide lymphatic researchers the ability to perform experiments in tissue explants containing lymphatic vessels under tissue position- and lymphatic lumen-controlled conditions. Methods and Results: In this article we provide technical details and description of the method of using the newly developed and implemented the position- and lymphatic lumen-controlled tissue chambers to study live lymphatic vessels and surrounding tissues ex vivo. In this study, we, for the first time, performed detailed comparative analysis of the contractile and pumping activity of rat mesenteric lymphatic vessels (MLVs) situated within tissue explants mounted in new tissue chambers and isolated, cannulated, and pressurized rat MLVs maintained in isolated vessel setups. We found no significant differences of the effects of both transmural pressure- and wall shear stress sensitivities of MLVs in tissue chambers and isolated MLVs. Conclusions: We conclude that ...