Experience and improvement in establishing an abdominal working heart transplantation model in rats / 中国实验动物学报

ABSTRACT

Objective To modify the techniques for establishment of an abdominal working heart transplantation model in rats and to sum up the key factors to success.Methods A total of 180 12-week old Brown Norway rats ( donor) and Lewis rats ( recipient) were used in this study50 BN rats and 50 Lewis rats for pilot experiment, and 40 BN rats and 50 Lewis rats for the formal experiment.The rat model of working heart heterotopic transplantation was adopted and estab-lished by Wiedemann’ s mode.We transplanted the heart from BN rats to Lewis rats and analyzed the survival rate, causes of death and histological changes of the heart ( HE staining) in this experiment.Results After exercise and modification, the survival rate was increased to 77.5%, and the mean total duration of operation was 71 ±11 min, and the mean ische-mic time of the donor hearts was 34 ±5 min.Histological examination ( HE staining) of the cardiac allograft showed a mild inflammatory cell infiltration in the graft at 24 h after transplantation, indicating that the model was reliable.Conclusions A variety of factors may affect the final operation success rate in the establishment of this heart transplantation model.A-mong them, the major affecting factors include healthy animals, donor heart protection, rapid and effective vascular su-ture, and postoperative animal management.