IKOSA® CAM Assay Application to Quantify Blood Vessels on Chick Chorioallantoic Membrane (CAM)

Abstract

Among in vivo angiogenesis assays, chick chorioallantoic membrane (CAM) assay has allowed meaningful progress in elucidating the mechanism of the vasoproliferative response to several pro- and antiangiogenic factors, thanks to its low costs, relatively easy management, and lower ethical concerns compared to other animal in vivo models. Here, we present a method to quantify angiogenesis and antiangiogenesis processes in the CAM based on the segmentation of microscopic images of blood vessels. Images captured from in vivo CAM samples can be analyzed for their vascularization with IKOSA CAM Assay to measure their total area, length, mean thickness, and the number of branching points. This chapter presents a detailed protocol to perform a CAM assay and analysis, and the IKOSA CAM Assay output is described.