Overview of Animal Models

Johnson NF. An overview of animal models for assessing synthetic vitreous fibers (SVFs) safety. Regul Toxicol Pharmacol 1994 20 S7-S21. 

There has been explosive growth in the number of disease models in recent decades, especially in the field of the knockouts and transgenic rodents. A description of the most frequently used models alone would take a separate volume, and even that would be outdated within no time. Information on the selection of models and background data can easily be found on the Internet. The US National Center for Research Resources (NCRR) provides overviews and links [12], In addition the main providers of laboratory animals have very useful information on their Web sites. Readers looking for overviews on animal models per disease may find useful information in the Drug Discovery Today Disease Models review journal (http //www.drugdiscoverytoday.com). 

A number of excellent review articles exist, including several that explain MR spectroscopy and detail the impact of MR spectroscopy in drug design and in preclinical studies, and others that provide overviews of human in vivo metabolism and pharmacokinetics measured by 19F MR in fluoropyrimidine compounds as well as in psychotropic compounds [1, 3-5, 7-10, 59, 60-63], In keeping with other facets of drug development, the number of 19F MR clinical investigations is much smaller than the number of animal model, specimen, cell line, or solution experiments. 

In this article, we have presented an overview of the development and pharmacology of the different classes of PAF antagonists. These compounds counteract diverse pathologies in various animal models and are now undergoing clinical investigation in human disease, where the initial results seem en-... 

The implementation of animal test protocols in the 1980s has been accompanied by the development of a host of alternative methods to study adverse effects of chemicals on reproductive and developmental parameters. For example, rat whole embryo culture stems from the seventies (16), as does the rat limb bud organ culture (17) and rat limb bud and brain micromass was developed in the eighties (18). An elegant nonvertebrate alternative model used regeneration of polyps of Hydra atUnuata from dissociated cells (19). Animal-free in vitro alternatives include those employing the proliferation of a human embryonic palatal mesenchymal cell line (20), the attachment of a mouse ovarian tumor cell line (21), and the differentiation of a neuroblastoma cell line (22) and a embryonal carcinoma cell line (23). Various overviews of methods have been published over the years (24). The predictability of... 

The third part. Developmental Psychopathology, delves into detailed disease-specific overviews. Each of the chapters covers issues pertaining to nosology and classification, to genetic determinants, brain systems implicated, environmental influences, and nature-nurture interactions. Neurotransmission and neuromodulation, and hormonal and other developmental influences are addressed and, whenever available, relevant animal models are incorporated into the discussion. The interplay of normative and derailed development is a core concept for these chapters. Of the part s 12 chapters, 9 are devoted to traditionally defined disease categories, and 3 cover the overarching areas of early-life stress, aggression, and affiliative behaviors. 

This brief overview highlights some of the more promising peptide-based relationships to the anxiety disorders from the more than 50 neuropeptides identified. Investigations into the role of peptides in human states of anxiety have included localization, animal modeling, postmortem receptor assays. 

Simon G, Maibach H. The pig as an experimental animal model of percutaneous permeation in man qualitative and quantitative observations—an overview. Skin Pharmacol Physiol 2000 13 229-234. 

Hoffmann JC, Pawlowski NN, Kuhl AA, Hohne W, Zeitz M. Animal models of inflammatory bowel disease an overview. Pathobiology 2002-2003 70 121-30. 

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