Chinese Journal of Tissue Engineering Research ›› 2022, Vol. 26 ›› Issue (14): 2273-2278.doi: 10.12307/2022.494

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Advances in animal models of pulmonary fibrosis induced by biotic and abiotic factors

Guo Qiqi1, Li Yi1, Weng Huanze1, Wang Qian2, Jia Min1, 2    

  1. 1Institute of Basic and Translational Medicine, Xi’an Medical University, Xi’an 710021, Shaanxi Province, China; 2Department of Physiology, Institute of Basic Medicine Science, Xi’an Medical University, Xi’an 710021, Shaanxi Province, China
  • Received:2021-03-22 Revised:2021-03-31 Accepted:2021-06-15 Online:2022-05-18 Published:2021-12-22
  • Contact: Jia Min, MD, Associate professor, Institute of Basic and Translational Medicine, Xi’an Medical University, Xi’an 710021, Shaanxi Province, China; Department of Physiology, Institute of Basic Medicine Science, Xi’an Medical University, Xi’an 710021, Shaanxi Province, China
  • About author:Guo Qiqi, Institute of Basic and Translational Medicine, Xi’an Medical University, Xi’an 710021, Shaanxi Province, China
  • Supported by:
    Shaanxi Provincial Science and Technology Innovation Base-Science and Technology Resource Open Sharing Platform Project, No. 2019PT-26 (to CYL); Shaanxi Provincial Natural Science Basic Research Program, No. 2020JM-609 (to WQ); Doctoral Research Startup Fund of Xi'an Medical University, No. 2020DOC23 (to JM) 

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Pulmonary fibrosis is a chronic lung tissue injury with unknown pathogenesis and poor prognosis. At present, the commonly used animal models of pulmonary fibrosis are induced by biological or abiotic factors, which are of great significance to study the pathogenesis, morphological and functional changes and treatment of pulmonary fibrosis. However, most studies have not systematically elucidated the differences between biological and abiotic factors induced pulmonary fibrosis model animals.
OBJECTIVE: To review the construction methods of animal models of pulmonary fibrosis so as to provide references for further clinical research and provide design ideas for further improvement of pulmonary fibrosis models in the future.
METHODS: Relevant literatures from 1998 to 2021 were retrieved in CNKI, WanFang Data, PubMed, Coremine, SCI-HUB and GeenMedical databases. The keywords used were “pulmonary fibrosis, animal model of pulmonary fibrosis, biological factors, abiotic factors” in Chinese and English, respectively. A total of 51 articles were included for further review and analysis.
RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: Animal models of pulmonary fibrosis can be established using biological factors and abiotic factors. Although the pulmonary fibrosis model that is induced by abiotic factors is unstable in the degree of pulmonary fibrosis, it is commonly used because of diverse drugs and routes of administration, easy to operate, and low cost. The methods used for establishing the pulmonary fibrosis model induced by abiotic factors mainly include drug/toxic factors (bleomycin, amiodarone, oleic acid, paraquat, fluorescein isothiocyanate), environmental factors (silica, asbestos, high concentration of oxygen) and other factors (humanization and aging). Pulmonary fibrosis models induced by biological factors are more common induced by cytokine overexpression or targeting type II alveolar epithelial cell damage. This type of model has similar clinical manifestation with pulmonary fibrosis in the late stage, which is stable but expensive. Bleomycin-induced modeling method is more commonly used. This method allows a variety of drug-delivery ways, and has high stability when using nasal feeding. It is safe and less liable to cause accidental death of mice, and has short modeling cycle and low modeling cost. However, the disadvantage of this method is that the induced fibrosis is only the general form of interstitial fibrosis without specificity; and when modeling using environmental factors, the most recommended inducer is silica, but it is now rarely used due to a great damage to the human body. This review considers comprehensively that comparing biological and abiotic factors in the establishment of the animal models of pulmonary fibrosis will help to select the appropriate model in animal experiments; as per the researchers’ own experimental purpose and needs, it is a better choice to induce the pulmonary fibrosis model using bleomycin via nasal feeding.

Key words: model, animal, pulmonary fibrosis, biological factors, abiotic factors, drug induction, environmental induction, bleomycin, humanized mouse model

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