Ulcerative Colitis Animal Model in Mini-Pig

초록

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is an inflammatory condition of gastrointestinal tract including ulcerative colitis (UC) and Crohn’s disease (CD). It is reported that prolonged IBD is going to develop to colon cancer that is one of the most commonly diagnosed and lethal cancer in world-wide. Its pathogenesis is multifaceted and not fully understood yet. There are well stabilized animal model for this disease condition in rodent. But, it has many drawbacks during drug development in terms of its physiological and morphological difference between rodent and human. On the other hand, Pig is considered as a good research model for its similarities with human including gastrointestinal tract. To make ulcerative pig model, we used Micropig® as a mini-pig animal model and Dextran sulfate sodium salt (DSS) for the inducing reagent. We made 4 groups (2 pigs/group) that received DSS (daily mixed in feed/water for 7 days). We checked the weight and clinical sign during the treatment. On day 8, we checked the colon of pig morphologically as well as fixed and sectioned it for further analysis. Tissue section of colon was scored from 0 to 5 based on disease level with three category (inflammation, crypt damage ulceration). We found that the entire group of pig has ulcerative disease symptoms that may useful for future research area including drug development