Zhou Yong, Chen Huaping, Ambalavanan Namasivayam, Liu Gang, Antony Veena B, Ding Qiang, Nath Hrudaya, Eary Janet F, Thannickal Victor J
1 Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Care Medicine and.
Departments of 2 Pediatrics and.
Am J Respir Cell Mol Biol. 2015 Jul;53(1):8-13. doi: 10.1165/rcmb.2015-0032TR.
Small animal models of lung fibrosis are essential for unraveling the molecular mechanisms underlying human fibrotic lung diseases; additionally, they are useful for preclinical testing of candidate antifibrotic agents. The current end-point measures of experimental lung fibrosis involve labor-intensive histological and biochemical analyses. These measures fail to account for dynamic changes in the disease process in individual animals and are limited by the need for large numbers of animals for longitudinal studies. The emergence of noninvasive imaging technologies provides exciting opportunities to image lung fibrosis in live animals as often as needed and to longitudinally track the efficacy of novel antifibrotic compounds. Data obtained by noninvasive imaging provide complementary information to histological and biochemical measurements. In addition, the use of noninvasive imaging in animal studies reduces animal usage, thus satisfying animal welfare concerns. In this article, we review these new imaging modalities with the potential for evaluation of lung fibrosis in small animal models. Such techniques include micro-computed tomography (micro-CT), magnetic resonance imaging, positron emission tomography (PET), single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT), and multimodal imaging systems including PET/CT and SPECT/CT. It is anticipated that noninvasive imaging will be increasingly used in animal models of fibrosis to gain insights into disease pathogenesis and as preclinical tools to assess drug efficacy.
肺纤维化的小动物模型对于阐明人类纤维化肺病的分子机制至关重要;此外,它们还可用于抗纤维化候选药物的临床前测试。目前实验性肺纤维化的终点测量涉及劳动强度大的组织学和生化分析。这些测量方法无法考虑个体动物疾病过程中的动态变化,并且受纵向研究需要大量动物的限制。非侵入性成像技术的出现为在活体动物中按需多次成像肺纤维化以及纵向跟踪新型抗纤维化化合物的疗效提供了令人兴奋的机会。通过非侵入性成像获得的数据为组织学和生化测量提供了补充信息。此外,在动物研究中使用非侵入性成像减少了动物使用量,从而满足了动物福利方面的担忧。在本文中,我们回顾了这些具有评估小动物模型肺纤维化潜力的新成像模式。此类技术包括微型计算机断层扫描(micro-CT)、磁共振成像、正电子发射断层扫描(PET)、单光子发射计算机断层扫描(SPECT)以及包括PET/CT和SPECT/CT在内的多模态成像系统。预计非侵入性成像将越来越多地用于纤维化动物模型,以深入了解疾病发病机制,并作为评估药物疗效的临床前工具。