A new experimental porcine model of venous thromboembolism and transcriptomic analysis of deep vein thrombosis in the femoral veins.

Venous thromboembolism (VTE), including deep vein thrombosis (DVT) and pulmonary embolism(PE), is a severe disease affecting the human venous system accompanied by high morbidity and mortality rates. The aim of the study was to establish a new porcine VTE model based on the formation of the thrombus in vivo, and analyze femoral veins and pulmonary arteries transcriptome in VTE. The model of VTE was produced in 10 animals (the experimental group), the remaining 5 pigs served as controls. Thrombus was formed in each closed femoral vein and then successfully released from the right femoral vein into the circulation. In 6 of 10 experimental pigs, PE was confirmed via both CTPA and an autopsy. Three hours after the CTPA, all experimental pigs were euthanized. In respect of the experimental animals, although all the pigs successfully developed DVT, we decided to analyze the samples taken only from animals which simultaneously developed PE (n=6); in the control group, RNA was isolated from the femoral veins and pulmonary arteries taken from all the pigs (n=5). Total RNA was isolated and high-throughput RNA sequencing was used to analyze the global changes in the transcriptome of veins and arteries with induced VTE.