Züchner M, Escalona MJ, Teige LH, Balafas E, Zhang L, Kostomitsopoulos N, Boulland JL. How to generate graded spinal cord injuries in swine - tools and procedures.
Dis Model Mech 2021;
14:dmm049053. [PMID:
34464444 PMCID:
PMC8419714 DOI:
10.1242/dmm.049053]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/08/2021] [Accepted: 07/07/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
Spinal cord injury (SCI) is a medically, psychologically and socially disabling condition. A large body of our knowledge on the basic mechanisms of SCI has been gathered in rodents. For preclinical validation of promising therapies, the use of animal models that are closer to humans has several advantages. This has promoted the more-intensive development of large-animal models for SCI during the past decade. We recently developed a multimodal SCI apparatus for large animals that generated biomechanically reproducible impacts in vivo. It is composed of a spring-load impactor and support systems for the spinal cord and the vertebral column. We now present the functional outcome of farm pigs and minipigs injured with different lesion strengths. There was a correlation between the biomechanical characteristics of the impact, the functional outcome and the tissue damage observed several weeks after injury. We also provide a detailed description of the procedure to generate such a SCI in both farm pigs and minipigs, in the hope to ease the adoption of the swine model by other research groups.
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