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Animal models of human cardiovascular disease, heart failure and hypertrophy
1Abteilung Kardiologie und Pneumologie, Universität Göttingen, Germany. hasenfus@ruf.uni-freiburg.de
Insights
Animal models are crucial for understanding congestive heart failure (CHF) and developing treatments. Choosing the right model depends on the research question, balancing clinical relevance with practical considerations for studying heart failure and hypertrophy.
Area of Science:
- Cardiovascular Research
- Translational Medicine
- Animal Models of Disease
Background:
- Significant advancements in congestive heart failure (CHF) understanding and treatment rely on animal models.
- Each animal model possesses distinct strengths and limitations influencing their applicability.
- Model selection is dictated by the specific scientific inquiry, ethical, economic, and logistical factors.
Purpose of the Study:
- To review existing animal models of heart failure and hypertrophy.
- To analyze the similarities between animal models and the human failing heart at myocardial, molecular, and subcellular levels.
- To discuss novel models and recent advancements in myocarditis research.
Main Methods:
- Literature review focusing on animal models of heart failure and hypertrophy.
- Comparative analysis of physiological and molecular mechanisms in animal models versus human CHF.
- Inclusion of recent developments in myocarditis models.
Main Results:
- The degree of clinical mimicry required in an animal model varies with the research objective.
- Models closely mirroring human CHF are essential for studying complex pathophysiological processes like remodeling.
- Less exact clinical replication is acceptable for investigating specific causal links, such as gene expression regulation.
Conclusions:
- The choice of animal model is critical and must be tailored to the research question.
- Understanding the similarities and differences between animal models and human heart failure is key for effective research.
- Ongoing development of new and improved animal models, including those for myocarditis, continues to advance cardiovascular science.
Abstract:
The progress made in our understanding of the pathophysiology and treatment of congestive heart failure (CHF) would not have been possible without a number of animal models of heart failure and hypertrophy, each one having unique advantages as well as disadvantages. The species and interventions used to create CHF depends on the scientific question as well as on factors such as ethical and economical considerations, accessibility and reproducibility or the model. How closely the model should mimic the human syndrome of CHF depends on the scientific question under investigation. If the goal is to study pathophysiological processes like remodeling or the function of subcellular systems such as excitation contraction-coupling processes, contractile protein function or energetics, the model of heart failure should mimic the clinical setting as closely as possible. However, if defined causal connections are under investigation such as structure-function analyses or regulation of gene expression, exact reflection of the clinical setting by the animal model may be less important. In this review, animal models of heart failure are discussed with particular focus on similarities between the animal model and the failing human heart regarding myocardial function as well as molecular and subcellular mechanisms. In addition, new models of heart failure and hypertrophy, and finally some recent animal models of myocarditis are reviewed.