Ex Vivo Perfusion System to Analyze Chemokine-Driven Leukocyte Adhesion

At the moment, many researchers are using in vitro techniques to investigate chemokine-driven leukocyte adhesion/recruitment, for example, by using a transwell or flow chamber system. Here we describe a more physiologically relevant, sophisticated, and highly flexible method to study leukocyte adhesion ex vivo in fresh murine carotid arteries under arterial flow conditions. This model mimics an in vivo situation and allows the combination of leukocytes and arteries isolated from different donors in one experiment, generating information on both vascular and leukocyte adhesive properties of both donors. This method provides a versatile, highly physiologically relevant model to investigate leukocyte adhesion.