Department of Veterinary Science, University of Parma, Parma, Italy.
Department of Veterinary Medical Sciences, University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy.
Sci Rep. 2021 Sep 16;11(1):18513. doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-97728-z.
Systemic sclerosis (SSc) is an autoimmune disease characterized by an excessive production and accumulation of collagen in the skin and internal organs often associated with interstitial lung disease (ILD). Its pathogenetic mechanisms are unknown and the lack of animal models mimicking the features of the human disease is creating a gap between the selection of anti-fibrotic drug candidates and effective therapies. In this work, we intended to pharmacologically validate a SSc-ILD model based on 1 week infusion of bleomycin (BLM) by osmotic minipumps in C57/BL6 mice, since it will serve as a tool for secondary drug screening. Nintedanib (NINT) has been used as a reference compound to investigate antifibrotic activity either for lung or skin fibrosis. Longitudinal Micro-CT analysis highlighted a significant slowdown in lung fibrosis progression after NINT treatment, which was confirmed by histology. However, no significant effect was observed on lung hydroxyproline content, inflammatory infiltrate and skin lipoatrophy. The modest pharmacological effect reported here could reflect the clinical outcome, highlighting the reliability of this model to better profile potential clinical drug candidates. The integrative approach presented herein, which combines longitudinal assessments with endpoint analyses, could be harnessed in drug discovery to generate more reliable, reproducible and robust readouts.
系统性硬化症 (SSc) 是一种自身免疫性疾病,其特征是皮肤和内脏器官中胶原的过度产生和积累,常伴有间质性肺病 (ILD)。其发病机制尚不清楚,缺乏模拟人类疾病特征的动物模型,这在抗纤维化药物候选物的选择和有效治疗之间造成了差距。在这项工作中,我们旨在通过渗透微型泵在 C57/BL6 小鼠中进行为期 1 周的博来霉素 (BLM) 输注,来对 SSc-ILD 模型进行药理学验证,因为它将作为二次药物筛选的工具。尼达尼布 (NINT) 已被用作参考化合物,用于研究肺纤维化或皮肤纤维化的抗纤维化活性。纵向 Micro-CT 分析强调了 NINT 治疗后肺纤维化进展的显著减缓,这通过组织学得到了证实。然而,肺羟脯氨酸含量、炎症浸润和皮肤脂肪萎缩均无明显变化。这里报道的适度的药理学作用可能反映了临床结果,突出了该模型更好地分析潜在临床药物候选物的可靠性。本文提出的综合方法,将纵向评估与终点分析相结合,可用于药物发现,以产生更可靠、可重复和稳健的检测结果。