Demystifying Animal Models of Adverse Pregnancy Outcomes: Touching Bench and Bedside

Abstract

This represents an overview of the use of animal models to study the adverse pregnancy outcomes seen in humans. The purpose is to entice clinicians to utilize some of this information to seek out the literature and have more meaningful and profitable discussions with their academic colleagues and enhance transdisciplinary research in reproductive health.

Adaptive mechanisms controlling uterine spiral artery remodeling during the establishment of pregnancy

“…The entry points for understanding placentation site-associated plasticity are homeostatic mechanisms that all cells utilize to optimize their survival when exposed to environmental stressors. Some elements of this fundamental adaptive process can be modeled in a dish and are most meaningful when complemented with investigations using animal models ( Bonney 2013; Clark 2014 ). Logically, placental disease results when adaptive responses at the implantation/placentation site fail or are inappropriate, thus sustaining or intensifying the environmental challenge and leading to maternal, fetal, and postnatal compromise.…”

To drive or be driven: the path of a mouse model of recurrent pregnancy loss

“…The implications of the relationship(s) between the mother, fetus and immune system reach clinical significance with regard to emerging infectious disease, vaccinations, autoimmunity, specific disease of pregnancy, fetal development and neonatal health. It has been our hypothesis that understanding of critical clinical and basic biological problems can result from the iterative use of good clinical/epidemiological data and well-understood animal models (Bonney 2013). Such an approach should lead to not only significant progress in our understanding of pregnancy, but also in logical and successful clinical intervention.…”

“…Why? As an outsider we would posit that due to unrecognized subtle and not so subtle differences in human and animal physiology that the models themselves take some of the blame (Bonney 2013) but not all of it. In addition, we propose that the theoretical framework which elicited the use of and interpretation of the data generated by these models, and further, the experimental direction lead by this interpretation may have impeded the finding of solutions.…”

Animal Models of Fetal Medicine and Obstetrics

“…This approach has been introduced in relevant animals ( Table 4). Notice that all the listed animals have bicornated uteruses while humans have a simple pyramid-shaped uterus [1]. These animals have two large horns and each have their own blood supply, allowing animal to act as both control (one horn) and case (another horn).…”