Kirschvink Nathalie, Reinhold Petra
Animal Physiology, Department of Veterinary Medicine, Faculty of Sciences, University of Namur, rue de Bruxelles 61, 5000 Namur, Belgium.
Curr Drug Targets. 2008 Jun;9(6):470-84. doi: 10.2174/138945008784533525.
This review focuses on the availability, advantages and non-advantages of asthma models in non-laboratory animals (cats, dogs, sheep, swine, cattle, horses, and monkey). Physiology and pathophysiology of the respiratory system as well as methodological aspects differ significantly between species and must be taken into account before evaluating the usefulness of a single species to serve as model for either asthma or chronic airway obstruction. Allergic asthma models have been described in cats, dogs, pigs, sheep, and monkeys. Among these species, the feline one is of particular interest because cats spontaneously develop idiopathic asthma. Currently available allergic feline models are well characterized with respect to lung function, bronchial responsiveness, airway inflammation and lung morphology (remodeling). Other species lacking for collateral airways (i.e. porcine and bovine lungs) are most sensitive to functional consequences of airway obstruction and are therefore suitable to study any obstructive lung disease. Animals of body weights comparable to humans (pigs, sheep, calves) offer the possibility to evaluate pulmonary functions using the same principles and techniques that are applicable to either children or adults during spontaneous breathing (generating lung function data in a directly comparable range). Despite the known disadvantages of being expensive and time consuming and despite limited availability of immunological or molecular tools, large animal models offer the great potential to perform long-term functional studies allowing a simultaneous within-subject approach of functional, inflammatory and morphological changes. This may add valuable information to the present knowledge about the complexity of asthma or other chronic airway diseases.
本综述聚焦于非实验动物（猫、狗、绵羊、猪、牛、马和猴子）哮喘模型的可用性、优点和缺点。不同物种之间呼吸系统的生理学和病理生理学以及方法学方面存在显著差异，在评估单一物种作为哮喘或慢性气道阻塞模型的实用性之前必须予以考虑。猫、狗、猪、绵羊和猴子中均已描述了变应性哮喘模型。在这些物种中，猫科动物尤其值得关注，因为猫会自发发生特发性哮喘。目前可用的变应性猫模型在肺功能、支气管反应性、气道炎症和肺形态（重塑）方面具有良好的特征。其他缺乏侧支气道的物种（即猪和牛的肺）对气道阻塞的功能后果最为敏感，因此适合研究任何阻塞性肺病。体重与人类相当的动物（猪、绵羊、小牛）提供了使用与儿童或成人在自主呼吸期间适用的相同原理和技术来评估肺功能的可能性（在直接可比的范围内生成肺功能数据）。尽管存在昂贵、耗时以及免疫或分子工具可用性有限等已知缺点，但大型动物模型具有进行长期功能研究的巨大潜力，允许对功能、炎症和形态学变化采用同时的受试者内方法。这可能会为目前关于哮喘或其他慢性气道疾病复杂性的知识增添有价值的信息。
