Quantification of vascular endothelial cell apoptosis in vivo

Regulation of vascular endothelial cell survival and apoptosis plays a crucial role during development and numerous physiologic and pathologic processes. Analyzing endothelial apoptosis in vivo is necessary not only for the understanding of many physiologic and pathologic processes but also for evaluating treatments that induce endothelial cell apoptosis. This chapter describes one of the more widely used protocols for detecting and quantifying vascular endothelial cell apoptosis by double-staining vascular endothelial cells with immunofluorescence and terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase dUTP nick-end labeling (TUNEL).