Translational Stroke Laboratory Group (TREAT), Clinical Neurosciences Research Laboratory (LINC), Health Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS), 15706 Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Proteomic Unit, Research Institute of Santiago de Compostela (IDIS), Complejo Hospitalario Universitario de Santiago de Compostela (CHUS), 15706 Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
Int J Mol Sci. 2024 Jul 9;25(14):7538. doi: 10.3390/ijms25147538.
Sham control groups are essential in experimental animal studies to reduce the influence of surgical intervention. The intraluminal filament procedure is one of the most common models of middle cerebral artery occlusion (MCAO) used in the study of brain ischemia. However, a sham group is usually not included in the experimental design of these studies. In this study, we aimed to evaluate the relevance of the sham group by analyzing and comparing the brain protein profiles of the sham and MCAO groups. In the sham group, 98 dysregulated proteins were detected, compared to 171 in the ischemic group. Moreover, a comparative study of protein profiles revealed the existence of a pool of 57 proteins that appeared to be dysregulated in both sham and ischemic animals. These results indicated that the surgical procedure required for the intraluminal occlusion of the middle cerebral artery (MCA) induces changes in brain protein expression that are not associated with ischemic lesions. This study highlights the importance of including sham control groups in the experimental design, to ensure that surgical intervention does not affect the therapeutic target under study.
在实验动物研究中，假手术对照组对于减少手术干预的影响至关重要。线栓法MCAO 是脑缺血研究中最常用的模型之一。然而，这些研究的实验设计通常不包括假手术组。在这项研究中，我们旨在通过分析和比较假手术组和 MCAO 组的脑蛋白图谱来评估假手术组的相关性。在假手术组中，检测到 98 个失调蛋白，而在缺血组中则检测到 171 个。此外，对蛋白图谱的比较研究表明，存在一组 57 个蛋白，似乎在假手术和缺血动物中都失调。这些结果表明，用于大脑中动脉（MCA）腔内闭塞的手术过程会引起与缺血性病变无关的脑蛋白表达变化。本研究强调了在实验设计中纳入假手术对照组的重要性，以确保手术干预不会影响研究中的治疗靶点。
