New approaches to pulmonary hypertension: will therapies in mice work in humans?

Gene manipulation in mice is now a routine approach to the investigation of disease pathophysiology. Examination of cardiovascular physiology in mice have required the development of miniaturized hemodynamic monitoring systems, or essentially mouse “cath labs,” in which catheters and guidewires are manipulated in mouse vessels often ,1 mm in size. Cardiovascular integrative physiology has become miniaturized in scale but magnified in impact. Studies testing the pharmacological or physiological effects of infused drugs, which once could be done only in large animals, are now performed in mice by genetic manipulation and/or gene transfer, with equally rigorous hemodynamic monitoring. The potential for defining disease pathophysiology and developing new therapies is enormous.