Establishment and characterization of a rat model of hypertension with hyperlipidemia / 中国比较医学杂志

ABSTRACT

Objective To develop an ideal hypertension combined hyperlipidemia(HP/HL)rat model by feeding spontaneously hypertensive rats(SHRs)with high fat diet, and to evaluate the pathological changes in target organs including heart and kidney. Methods Twenty 3-week old male SHRs were randomly divided into two groups normal fat control group(SHR-NC)and high fat group(SHR-HF). Moreover,ten 3-week old male Wistar-Kyoto rats(WKY)were taken as the model control group(WKY-NC). The rats in SHR-HF group were fed with high-fat diet to induce HP/HL, while rats of WKY-NC and SHR-NC groups were fed with normal diet. The systolic blood pressure(SBP)and body weight were measured every week. At the end of the experiment, the rats were sacrificed to take serum samples for blood lipid analysis including high density lipoprotein(HDL-C), low density lipoprotein(LDL-C), total cholesterol(TC)and triglyceride(TG). Heart and kidney tissue samples were collected to examine the pathological changes using HE and Masson staining. Results Compared with the SHR-NC group, the SHRs fed with high-fat diet for 23 weeks presented significant increase of blood pressure and TC, TG, LDL-C, and decrease of HDL-C. The HP/HL rat model showed pathological changes in the HP/HL target organs, heart and kidney. Renal tissues were severely damaged and showed a large area of fibrosis. Besides, left ventricular hypertrophy and myocardial fibrosis were also observed. Conclusions A HP/HL rat model is successfully constructed by feeding SHRs with high-fat diet for 23 weeks. Most importantly,this model exhibits progressive renal and cardiac alterations, similar to those of patients with HP/HL. This HP/HL rat model may become widely used for evaluation of HP/HL therapeutic drugs.