马尔尼菲篮状菌感染动物模型的研究进展

马尔尼菲篮状菌Talaromyces marneffei是一种温度双相性致病真菌,原名马尔尼菲青霉Penicillium marneffei。马尔尼菲篮状菌病是由马尔尼菲篮状菌感染引起的一种严重的深部真菌病,主要流行于东南亚地区,在我国主要以南方地区多见,该病与HIV/AIDS的流行有高度相关性。近年来,随着艾滋病发病率的上升,马尔尼菲篮状菌病的发病率呈逐年上升趋势。该病发病隐匿,病死率高,但致病机制尚不明确。动物模型能够为疾病的发病机理和临床治疗等研究提供充分有力的证据,本文综述了马尔尼菲篮状菌感染动物模型的研究进展,对几种新型的动物模型进行了探讨。     

基因编辑动物模型在人类疾病研究中的应用

近年来,随着以CRISPR/Cas9为代表的多种CRISPR系统的开发和不断改进,基因编辑技术逐渐完善,并广泛应用于人类疾病动物模型的制备。基因编辑动物模型为人类疾病的发病机理、病理过程以及预防和治疗等方面的研究提供了重要的素材。目前,用于人类疾病研究的基因编辑动物模型主要有小鼠、大鼠为代表的啮齿类动物模型和以猪为代表的大动物模型。其中啮齿类动物在机体各方面与人类差别较大,且寿命短,无法对人类疾病的研究和治疗提供有效评估和长期追踪;而猪在生理学、解剖学、营养学和遗传学等各方面与人类更接近,是器官移植和人类疾病研究领域重要的动物模型。文中主要介绍了基因编辑动物模型在神经退行性疾病、肥厚心肌病、癌症、免疫缺陷类疾病和代谢性疾病等5种人类疾病研究中的应用情况,以期为人类疾病研究及相关动物模型的制备提供参考。     

遗传性白内障动物模型的研究进展

白内障是严重影响公众健康的重大疾病。人群中, 大部分遗传性白内障是外显率较高的常染色体显性遗传, 但也有X连锁和常染色体隐性遗传存在。随着分子生物学技术的发展, 出现了许多白内障遗传动物模型, 这些模型有助于揭示白内障的发病机制, 为晶状体的发育和生理学研究提供新的见解, 还有助于进一步了解遗传、环境和营养等因素对晶状体的作用方式, 并为白内障遗传病的诊断和治疗提供依据。文章综述了遗传性白内障动物模型的相关基因、突变形式及其研究进展。     

睡眠研究中相关动物选择的进展

在睡眠研究使用的各种实验动物中,除了常用的啮齿类动物,还有猫、果蝇、猴和斑马鱼等.啮齿类动物因制作其睡眠相关的模型简便易行而得到广泛的应用,主要是采用各种物理化学方法制作失眠动物模型;转基因小鼠主要应用于药物干预睡眠及睡眠发生机制的研究;果蝇和斑马鱼多用于遗传学中睡眠的研究;猫用于睡眠研究的历史悠久,多用于体内试验,对内源性神经递质进行定量分析;猴睡眠结构与人相似,被广泛用于神经生物学,行为药理学等领域与睡眠的关系研究中.由于各种实验动物特殊的生理特征,在睡眠研究中多根据研究目的选择不同的实验动物.     

Opportunities and strategies to further reduce animal use for Leptospira vaccine potency testing

Hamsters are routinely infected with virulent Leptospira for two purposes in the regulation of biologics: the performance of Codified potency tests and maintenance of challenge culture for the Codified potency tests. Options for reducing animal use in these processes were explored in a plenary lecture at the “International Workshop on Alternative Methods for Leptospira Vaccine Potency Testing: State of the Science and the Way Forward” held at the Center for Veterinary Biologics in September 2012. The use of validated in vitro potency assays such as those developed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture for Leptospira (L.) canicola, Leptospira grippotyphosa, Leptospira pomona, and Leptospira icterohaemorrhagiae rather than the Codified hamster vaccination–challenge assay was encouraged. Alternatives such as reduced animal numbers in the hamster vaccination–challenge testing were considered for problematic situations. Specifically, the merits of sharing challenge controls, reducing group sizes, and eliminating animals for concurrent challenge dose titration were assessed. Options for maintaining virulent, stable cultures without serial passage through hamsters or with decreased hamster use were also discussed. The maintenance of virulent Leptospira without the use of live animals is especially difficult since a reliable means to maintain virulence after multiple in vitro passages has not yet been identified.     

欧盟保护实验动物新指令2010/63/EU介绍及比较分析

从2013年1月开始欧盟将实施新的保护试验用动物指令2010/63/EU,新指令与旧指点令相比在涉及动物福利和3R原则的许多条款上做了完善,体现了国际社会对实验动物使用和管理的最新理念。欧盟保护实验动物法规的变迁,以及适应社会形势和科技进步做出的调整,对于当前中国实验动物实现规范化管理,融入国际实验动物科学发展主流理念具有重要借鉴意义。对指令条款的理解也有助于推动实验动物行业参与国际竞争、外包服务和对外贸易中发挥专业作用。     

Gene therapy for lysosomal storage diseases: the lessons and promise of animal models

There are more than 40 different forms of inherited lysosomal storage diseases (LSDs) known to occur in humans and the aggregate incidence has been estimated to approach 1 in 7000 live births. Most LSDs are associated with high morbidity and mortality and represent a significant burden on patients, their families, and health care providers. Except for symptomatic therapies, many LSDs remain untreatable, and gene therapy is among the only viable treatment options potentially available. Therapies for some LSDs do exist, or are under evaluation, including heterologous bone marrow transplantation (BMT), enzyme replacement therapy (ERT), and substrate reduction therapy (SRT), but these treatment options are associated with significant concerns, including high morbidity and mortality (BMT), limited positive outcomes (BMT), incomplete response to therapy (BMT, ERT, and SRT), life-long therapy (ERT, SRT), and cost (BMT, ERT, SRT). Gene therapy represents a potential alternative therapy, albeit a therapy with its own attendant concerns. Animal models of LSDs play a critical role in evaluating the efficacy and safety of therapy for many of these conditions. Naturally occurring animal homologs of LSDs have been described in the mouse, rat, dog, cat, guinea pig, emu, quail, goat, cattle, sheep, and pig. In this review we discuss those animal models that have been used in gene therapy experiments and those with promise for future evaluations.     

The ARRIVE guidelines,a welcome improvement to standards for reporting animal research

Here we introduce the ARRIVE (Animal Research: Reporting In Vivo Experiments) guidelines, produced by the National Centre for the Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs), which are published in this issue of the journal with our endorsement, and will be incorporated into our Instructions to Authors. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Use of animal models to understand titin physiology and pathology

In recent years, increasing attention has been paid to titin (TTN) and its mutations. Heterozygous TTN truncating variants (TTNtv) increase the risk of a cardiomyopathy. At the same time, TTNtv and few missense variants have been identified in patients with mainly recessive skeletal muscle diseases. The pathogenic mechanisms underlying titin‐related diseases are still partly unknown. Similarly, the titin mechanical and functional role in the muscle contraction are far from being exhaustively clarified. In the last few years, several animal models carrying variants in the titin gene have been developed and characterized to study the structural and mechanical properties of specific titin domains or to mimic patients'' mutations. This review describes the main animal models so far characterized, including eight mice models and three fish models (Medaka and Zebrafish) and discusses the useful insights provided by a thorough characterization of the cell‐, tissue‐ and organism‐phenotypes in these models.     

Challenges and opportunities for the future of monoclonal antibody development: Improving safety assessment and reducing animal use

The market for biotherapeutic monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) is large and is growing rapidly. However, attrition poses a significant challenge for the development of mAbs, and for biopharmaceuticals in general, with large associated costs in resource and animal use. Termination of candidate mAbs may occur due to poor translation from preclinical models to human safety. It is critical that the industry addresses this problem to maintain productivity. Though attrition poses a significant challenge for pharmaceuticals in general, there are specific challenges related to the development of antibody-based products. Due to species specificity, non-human primates (NHP) are frequently the only pharmacologically relevant species for nonclinical safety and toxicology testing for the majority of antibody-based products, and therefore, as more mAbs are developed, increased NHP use is anticipated. The integration of new and emerging in vitro and in silico technologies, e.g., cell- and tissue-based approaches, systems pharmacology and modeling, have the potential to improve the human safety prediction and the therapeutic mAb development process, while reducing and refining animal use simultaneously. In 2014, to engage in open discussion about the challenges and opportunities for the future of mAb development, a workshop was held with over 60 regulators and experts in drug development, mechanistic toxicology and emerging technologies to discuss this issue. The workshop used industry case-studies to discuss the value of the in vivo studies and identify opportunities for in vitro technologies in human safety assessment. From these and continuing discussions it is clear that there are opportunities to improve safety assessment in mAb development using non-animal technologies, potentially reducing future attrition, and there is a shared desire to reduce animal use through minimised study design and reduced numbers of studies.     

Plasma lipid profiling across species for the identification of optimal animal models of human dyslipidemia

In an attempt to understand the applicability of various animal models to dyslipidemia in humans and to identify improved preclinical models for target discovery and validation for dyslipidemia, we measured comprehensive plasma lipid profiles in 24 models. These included five mouse strains, six other nonprimate species, and four nonhuman primate (NHP) species, and both healthy animals and animals with metabolic disorders. Dyslipidemic humans were assessed by the same measures. Plasma lipoprotein profiles, eight major plasma lipid fractions, and FA compositions within these lipid fractions were compared both qualitatively and quantitatively across the species. Given the importance of statins in decreasing plasma low-density lipoprotein cholesterol for treatment of dyslipidemia in humans, the responses of these measures to simvastatin treatment were also assessed for each species and compared with dyslipidemic humans. NHPs, followed by dog, were the models that demonstrated closest overall match to dyslipidemic humans. For the subset of the dyslipidemic population with high plasma triglyceride levels, the data also pointed to hamster and db/db mouse as representative models for practical use in target validation. Most traditional models, including rabbit, Zucker diabetic fatty rat, and the majority of mouse models, did not demonstrate overall similarity to dyslipidemic humans in this study.     

GFP-reporter for a high throughput assay to monitor estrogenic compounds

In vitro test systems using yeast cells are a useful tool for the determination of the estrogenic activity of estrogens, phyto- and xeno-estrogens and can be used for monitoring large sample numbers in a routine analysis procedure. Our conventional transactivation assay functions with an expression plasmid expressing estrogen receptor α (ERα) under the control of a copper-inducible CUP1 promoter and a reporter plasmid expressing β-galactosidase under the control of the vitellogenin estrogen response element (ERE). In the novel yeast screen system the lacZ gene in the reporter plasmid was substituted by a gene for green fluorescent protein (GFP). Incubation of yeast with various concentrations of estrogenically active substances led to expression of the reporter gene product GFP in a dose dependent manner. The yeast transactivation assay was further down-scaled to be performed in a microplate scale, which is an important step to facilitate handling of large sample numbers. The sensitivity and reproducibility of the novel test system could be confirmed by analysis of the potencies of various estrogenically active substances. Thus, the newly developed yeast estrogen screen using GFP as a reporter can substitute the assay that has been used for a period of several years.     

Use of bioinformatics tools for the annotation of disease-associated mutations in animal models

Single-point mutations are one of the most frequent causes of genetic variability in both human and close species. The recent availability of different bioinformatics tools for annotating human single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) has opened the possibility of using them to score SNPs from species with a biomedical interest, in particular from mice and other models of human disease. Also, this ability to predict pathogenicity of single point mutations in one species, based on data from another species, opens the possibility to predict the pathological character of single point mutations in humans using data from well-characterized model systems of human disease. This could provide a valuable alternative to the more traditional genetic population approaches. However, transferral of prediction tools may be limited by different factors, from a species bias in the training set, to a large sequence divergence between the proteomes of the training and the target species. Here we study the conditions under which prediction tools can be transferred among species, concentrating in the case of mice. We find that for the majority of the human-mouse homolog pairs, the sequence similarity is large enough to preserve the pathological character of mutations among species, in general. We then establish that prediction/annotation tools developed for one organism can be used to predict the neutral/pathological character of mutations/SNPs in the other organism.     

A new Class of Drugs for BNCT? Borylated derivatives of ferrocenium compounds in animal experiments

A new class of drugs, borylated derivatives of ferrocenium compounds, which show a comparatively facile synthesis is investigated on their boron neutron capture accumulation. Investigations focused on the fast and effective testing of 12 ferrocene derivatives with tetracoordinated boron atoms, which should accumulate in rodent tumors. The macroscopic studies on time-dependent boron distributions and boron concentrations in mice were carried out by inductively coupled plasma-atomic emission spectrometry, inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometry, and quantitative neutron capture radiography. The determination of boron concentrations after injection of 2b showed high boron contents in spleen, liver, kidneys, less in lung and muscle, and poor in integral blood, blood plasma, tumor, and brain. It is interesting to note that 2b penetrates the blood-brain barrier which may be advantageous in the treatment of astrocytomas and glioblastomas.