Characterization of porcine CLCA members with potential significance for cystic fibrosis

AuszugIn recent years, strong efforts have been made to establish the pig as an animal model for various human diseases. Compared to other widely used models including mice and rats, the pig is advantageous due to the large similarities between many porcine and human organ systems (Rogers et al. 2008a). Amongst others, pigs are successfully being used as models for atherosclerosis and other vascular diseases (Vilahur et al. 2011), obesity (Dyson et al. 2006), and diabetes (Bellinger et al. 2006), and they function as organ donors in xenotransplantation efforts (Cooper et al. 2008). Epidermal layer composition, keratinocyte differentiation and the epidermal expression of antigenic determinants are also similar between porcine and human skin, supporting the role of the pig as a suitable animal model for human skin (Wollina et al. 1991; Wollina et al. 1992; Liu et al. 2009). The longevity of pigs and their large size enable investigations of long-term changes in several diseases as well as developing new therapeutic strategies (Rogers et al. 2008a). The porcine lung, in particular, resembles the human lung very closely in terms of size, microanatomy and development, with a comparable distribution of submucosal glands along the cartilaginous airways (Choi et al. 2000; Hug and Bridges 2001; Cunningham et al. 2002; Rogers et al. 2008a). Thus, the pig lung has been used as model for numerous respiratory diseases, including bronchiolitis obliterans (Watremez et al. 2002; Alho et al. 2007), hyperresponsiveness (Mitchell et al. 2004), and asthma (Rogers et al. 2008a; Renukaradhya et al. 2011).