Experimental models for induction of liver cirrhosis in animals: a review

Abstract

The liver plays a key role in the homeostatic balance of many biological processes. Cirrhosis is a syndrome in which chronic liver diseases converge, leading to hepatocellular injury, the exacerbated deposition of fibrous tissue, and eventually the disruption of the tissue architecture. The liver is subject to potential injury by a large quantity of pharmacological agents, toxic and/or microbiological. For the study of possible treatments for cirrhosis, it is necessary to establish animal models of induction of cirrhosis, especially in laboratory rodents which mimic the cirrhotic process found in animals and humans, that have high reproducibility and uniformity, with a low mortality rate. Thus, the induction of liver cirrhosis becomes essential to the investigation of chronic liver diseases, as well as to test possible therapeutic treatments for subsequent use in human and veterinary clinics. Currently, experimental studies have been conducted to collect data about the various hepatotoxic drug effects. Carbon tetrachloride -CCl4, Thioacetamide –TAA and dimethylnitrosamine -DMN were the drugs of choice for cirrhosis induction in experimental models in this study. The model using cirrhotic TAA seems to be the best model for the reason that it produces a histological pattern closest to that of human cirrhosis, leading to lower mortality with higher reproducibility and security, despite the longer period of induction (14 weeks).

Keywords

• experimental models
• induction
• liver cirrhosis
• rats
• thioacetamide