Objective To explore an effective method to remove sympathetic nerve from the femoral artery in a rabbit model.Methods Femoral arteries from 16 New Zealand rabbits were separated and treated with different drugs.The femoral arteries were processed with Krebs buffer containing 0.1 mg/mL 6-hydroxydopamine hydrobromide (6-OHDA) and 0.1％ ascorbic acid in the experimental group (n =12),but with Krebs buffer only containing 0.1％ ascorbic acid in the control group (n =4).To investigate the recovery time of sympathetic nerves after drug intervention,the experimental group was divided into 3 subgroups(n =4 for each) for sampling at 7,14 and 28 days respectively.Hematoxylin-eosin (HE) staining was used to detect the structure changes of the femoral artery while glyoxylic acid staining to observe the distribution of sympathetic nerves.The protein expressions of tyrosine hydroxylase (TH) and nerve peptide Y (NPY) were also investigated with western blot.Results HE staining showed that the treatment of 6-OHDA did not damage the normal structure of vascular bundles,compared with the control group.By glyoxylic acid staining,a massive web of sympathetic nerves was distributed in the femoral artery in the control group.In contrast,the sympathetic nerves were almost invisible at 7 and 14 days,and only few of them were observed at 28 days after the treatment of 6-OHDA.The TH/β-actin ratios were 0.70 ± 0.08,0.19 ± 0.08,0.20 ±0.06 and 0.33 ±0.06 while the NPY/β-actin ratios were 0.68 ±0.14,0.14 ±0.02,0.17 ±0.02 and 0.53 ±0.10 in the control group,7-day,14-day and 28-day sampling subgroups,respectively.At all time points,the TH and NPY expressions in all the experimental sub-groups were significantly lower than in the control group (P ＜ 0.05),though the expressions were significantly higher in the 28-day sampling subgroup than in the other 2 subgroups (P ＜ 0.05).Conclusions Since local application of 6-OHDA can effectively remove the sympathetic nerve from the femoral artery in a rabbit model,it provides an ideal experimental model with which it is a feasible to remove sympathetic nerves from vascular walls to investigate denervated vascular bundles.