A Practical Method of Chronic Ethanol Administration in Mice

Abstract

Mice provide a useful model for the study of immune deficiency caused by chronic alcohol abuse. Their suitability is related to several factors, including in particular the extensive knowledge base in the immunology of mice already existing in the literature. Specific modeling of the immunodeficiency of the chronic human alcoholic requires that ethanol must be administered to the model for a significant portion of its life span. In mice, it has proven to be necessary to administer ethanol daily for up to 32 wk or longer to observe all the immune abnormalities that occur in middle-aged alcoholic humans. Such time spans are problematic with many of the common protocols for ethanol administration. It has been shown by others and confirmed by our group that the most practical way of accomplishing such long protocols is by administering ethanol in water as the only choice of water. Details of management of the chronic ethanol mouse colony are described here that are necessary for the success of such studies, including methods for initiating ethanol administration, maintenance of barrier protection, monitoring weight gain, strain differences and fetal alcohol exposure.

Hepatitis C and Alcohol Exacerbate Liver Injury by Suppression of FOXO3

“…However, several different alcohol administration models have been used with mice. 30 The addition of alcohol to the drinking water 40 does not generally produce liver effects, but liver injury in mice does occur with a voluntary liquid-feeding diet, first developed by Lieber and DeCarli, 41 an intragastric infusion model, developed by Tsukamoto et al, 42 and, more recently, an acute or chronic alcohol administration model, developed by Gao and colleagues, 43 in which a modified Lieber-DeCarli diet is supplemented with alcohol gavage. The degree of liver injury produced by these models depends on other dietary components and seems to require the unsaturated fatty acid composition of the administered liquid-feeding solutions.…”

A Recent Perspective on Alcohol, Immunity, and Host Defense

“…In the intragastric continous alcohol feeding model developed by Tsukamoto-French, alcohol administration to rats or mice leads to most features of human alcoholic liver disease including steatohepatitis and necroinflammation, although the extent of liver fibrosis is minimal with any of these models in rodents (Tsukamoto et al, 2008). Another method used in mice is administration of alcohol in the drinking water with regular chow diet (Coleman et al, 2008). This model has recently been proposed as mimicking human chronic alcohol use without liver disease (Cook et al, 2007).…”

Laboratory Models Available to Study Alcohol‐Induced Organ Damage and Immune Variations: Choosing the Appropriate Model

“…Therefore, it is probably safe to say that most investigators would view alcohol feeding for one month or more as chronic administration. If the goal of the experiment, for example, is to design a model in mice that is equivalent to a middle-aged human alcoholic this will entail administering alcohol for up to 8 months [Coleman et al, 2008]. Chronic disease induced by alcohol, such as alcoholic liver disease, is a multi-step disease process which typically progresses through stages of alcoholic steatosis, alcoholic hepatitis, and alcoholic cirrhosis to end-stage liver disease.…”