Donglang Guan, Tongtong Liu, Dan Chen, Chan Zhu, Changming Wang, Guang Yu, Yan Yang, Zongxiang Tang
School of Medicine & Holistic Integrative Medicine, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, Nanjing, China.
Front Med (Lausanne). 2021 Feb 23;8:630237. doi: 10.3389/fmed.2021.630237. eCollection 2021.
The animal model is an important tool to study the mechanism of disease formation. Different animal models of pruritus have been adopted based on the purpose of researchers in the study of the itching mechanism. Although the symptoms of various models are quite different, scratching behavior is a key indicator. Therefore, it is necessary to find an animal model that can quickly induce animal scratching and maintain the stability of scratching behavior. In this study, we compared animal models of pruritus induced by four substances and found that the scratching behavior of mice induced by urushiol not only reached the plateau stage quickly but also showed more stability in the plateau phase than that induced by 2,4-dinitrofluorobenzene, oxazolone, and imiquimod. Meanwhile, in the animal model induced by urushiol, the changes of epidermal thickening and inflammatory cell aggregation were also more obvious. In addition, pruritus induced by urushiol is prevalent all over the world, especially in the United States and Europe, involving outdoor groups such as firefighters, forest loggers, and farmers. Therefore, we believe that the urushiol-induced animal model is an ideal choice for the study of the itch formation mechanism and the development of antipruritic drugs.
动物模型是研究疾病形成机制的重要工具。基于研究瘙痒机制的目的，研究人员采用了不同的瘙痒动物模型。尽管各种模型的症状差异很大，但搔抓行为是一个关键指标。因此，有必要找到一种能够快速诱导动物搔抓并维持搔抓行为稳定性的动物模型。在本研究中，我们比较了四种物质诱导的瘙痒动物模型，发现漆酚诱导的小鼠搔抓行为不仅迅速达到平台期，而且在平台期比2,4-二硝基氟苯、恶唑酮和咪喹莫特诱导的搔抓行为表现出更高的稳定性。同时，在漆酚诱导的动物模型中，表皮增厚和炎症细胞聚集的变化也更明显。此外，漆酚引起的瘙痒在世界各地都很普遍，尤其是在美国和欧洲，涉及消防员、伐木工和农民等户外群体。因此，我们认为漆酚诱导的动物模型是研究瘙痒形成机制和开发止痒药物的理想选择。
