ABSTRACT
Atrial fibrillation ( AF) is an abnormal heart rhythm characterised by rapid and irregular beating.It is caused by multiple factors and can lead to ischemia-associated thrombosis, heart failure and other complex symptoms. Based on the etiology and characteristics of AF, animal models have 3 main categories including electrical, neurohormonal or vessel-related, and structural remodeling models.New technologies such as microRNA knock-down/overexpression or CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing provide tools for constructing animal AF models and directions in the development of AF thera-peutic strategies.Currently these strategies have largely focused on the cellular and molecular therapeutics rather than tradi-tional invasive electrophysiological methods or antiarrhythmic drugs.With the aid of new tools, progress has been greatly made in a broad range of therapeutic research areas including molecular mechanisms, drug targeting and screening.This re-view summarizes the animal models of atrial fibrillation currently used in studies of the molecular and cellular therapeutics and notes their contributions to this research area.