Small Animal Models of Heart Failure
Abstract
T he study of heart failure requires viable animal models whereby chronic changes in myocardial structure and function can evolve and the progression of heart failure and left ventricular (LV) dysfunction can be quantified.During the past 40 years, basic and translational scientists have used small animal models to explore the pathophysiology of heart failure and to develop novel therapies that might slow the progression of this prevalent and fatal disease.The purpose of this review is to describe commonly used heart failure models in rodents and to cite examples of how these models have been used to evaluate novel therapies for the treatment of heart failure. Heart Failure Models in RatsHeart failure models were originally developed in rats because of numerous potential advantages inherent in a small animal model (see Table 1).Housing and maintenance costs for rats are much lower than for large animals, thus reducing costs and increasing the number of animals included in a given study to improve the statistical power.Moreover, more recent technological advances in echocardiography, MRI, and micromanometer conductance catheters have greatly streamlined the assessment of cardiac function in rodents, removing a significant barrier to their use in heart failure research.The development of suitable expertise to perform open-chest surgical procedures and invasive hemodynamic assessments in rats is far easier compared with that required for mice.Additionally, investigators are…
Read the paper
Related studies
- The Matrisome: In Silico Definition and In Vivo Characterization by Proteomics of Normal and Tumor Extracellular Matrices
- The Escherichia coli MG1655 in silico metabolic genotype: Its definition, characteristics, and capabilities
- In silico pharmacology for drug discovery: methods for virtual ligand screening and profiling
- In silico prediction of splice-altering single nucleotide variants in the human genome
- In silico clinical trials: how computer simulation will transform the biomedical industry
- In silico optimization of a guava antimicrobial peptide enables combinatorial exploration for peptide design
Go deeper in Evidence Hub
Evidence Hub adds a study data sheet (design, sample size, evidence level, key numbers), an AI summary and a chat grounded in the paper's text.