Review of the UBC Porcine Model of Traumatic Spinal Cord Injury

Abstract

Traumatic spinal cord injury (SCI) research has recently focused on the use of rat and mouse models for in vivo SCI experiments. Such small rodent SCI models are invaluable for the field, and much has been discovered about the biologic and physiologic aspects of SCI from these models. It has been difficult, however, to reproduce the efficacy of treatments found to produce neurologic benefits in rodent SCI models when these treatments are tested in human clinical trials. A large animal model may have advantages for translational research where anatomical, physiological, or genetic similarities to humans may be more relevant for pre-clinically evaluating novel therapies. Here, we review the work carried out at the University of British Columbia (UBC) on a large animal model of SCI that utilizes Yucatan miniature pigs. The UBC porcine model of SCI may be a useful intermediary in the pre-clinical testing of novel pharmacological treatments, cell-based therapies, and the “bedside back to bench” translation of human clinical observations, which require preclinical testing in an applicable animal model.

Epidural Stimulation Combined with Triple Gene Therapy for Spinal Cord Injury Treatment

“…Here, we did not use a sham group. We employed the established model of SCI in pigs [ 45 ] and it was shown that the morphological characteristics of the spinal cord [ 77 ] and the PTIBS score [ 78 ] in sham pigs do not differ from intact animals. The small animal number in this exploratory study, similar to other pre-clinical studies performed on a small number of large animals [ 79 , 80 ], was explained by the difficult maintenance and care of large animals with SCI.…”

Strategies for Oligodendrocyte and Myelin Repair in Traumatic CNS Injury

“…While the large animal literature utilizing CRT for remyelination after SCI is still in its infancy, several key articles should be noted. Pig, dog, and primate models have examined the role of myelination in cell replacement strategies (McMahill et al, 2015 ; Kim et al, 2018 ; Rosenzweig et al, 2018 ). Pig and primate models are commonly used for preclinical trials (Iwanami et al, 2005 ; Santamaría et al, 2018 ).…”

A Hyper-Viscoelastic Continuum-Level Finite Element Model of the Spinal Cord Assessed for Transverse Indentation and Impact Loading

“…Several studies have reported similarities between bovine and human spinal cord mechanical properties (Bilston and Thibault, 1995;Oakland et al, 2006). In other studies, porcine tissues were used and have been suggested to be a reasonable surrogate for human tissues (Sparrey and Keaveny, 2011;Shetye et al, 2014;Kim et al, 2018).…”