Abstract:
Objective: An intravital fluorescence microscopic method and digital image analysis were established for measuring the changes of fluorescein sodium (FlNa, MW 376) permeability in mesenterial microvessels.
Methods: The transport of fluorescent tracer within the blood vessels and through the vessel walls into the perivascular tissue of the rat mesentery was study using a highly sensitive CCD camera, the fluorescence intensities were transformed into video signals and recorded for subsequent analysis.
Results: The results show that FlNa can pass through the wall of microvessels with minimal delay. The permeabiity velocity was a constant (1.1635×10
-7 cm
2/s) and very fast within the first 20 secend, after that,the velocity was 5 times slower and still a constant (0.2045×10
-7 cm
2/s).
Conclusion: it is expected that this method would be very useful for the quantitive analysis in various molecular weights and in monolayer endothelial cells permeability.