| Despite continuing advances in plastic surgery research, surgical flaps can fail. Though heat shock is a promising preconditioning strategy, it was ineffective at improving survival in a perforator flap model. Heat shock decreased flap viability, despite initiating a stress response. Impaired viability may be associated with choke vessel growth. Choke vessels are vascular anastomoses between vascular territories. Despite the importance of choke vessel growth to plastic surgery, the process is poorly understood. Protein levels during choke vessel growth were examined to gain a better understanding of the pathways involved with the ultimate goal of a novel preconditioning technique. I found that choke vessel growth proceeds in an inflammatory environment. The sequence of protein and morphological changes suggest that the mechanism of choke vessel growth is similar to arteriogenesis. This is the first study to use molecular analysis to examine a possible role for arteriogenic pathways in post-operative choke vessel growth. |
