Preparation and monitoring of small animals in renal MRI

Renal diseases remain devastating illnesses with unacceptably high rates of mortality and morbidity worldwide. Animal models are essential tools to better understand the pathomechanism of kidney-related illnesses and to develop new, successful therapeutic strategies. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been actively explored in the last decades for assessing renal function, perfusion, tissue oxygenation as well as the degree of fibrosis and inflammation. This chapter aims to provide an overview of the preparation and monitoring of small animals before, during, and after surgical interventions or MR imaging. Standardization of experimental settings such as body temperature or hydration of animals and minimizing pain and distress are essential for diminishing nonexperimental variables as well as for conducting ethical research.This publication is based upon work from the COST Action PARENCHIMA, a community-driven network funded by the European Cooperation in Science and Technology (COST) program of the European Union, which aims to improve the reproducibility and standardization of renal MRI biomarkers

Invasiveness risk of biofuel crops using Jatropha curcas L. as a model species

Biofuel crops are promoted as a climate friendly alternative to fossil energy. Yet environmental risks such as potential biodiversity loss are not always adequately considered. This might occur directly as a consequence of land-use change from natural systems to biofuel plantations, but also through invasive behavior of the biofuel species, as it might disperse and establish into adjacent natural systems. Therefore, there is a need to perform ex-ante invasiveness risk assessments including field trials on new biofuel species before they get promoted and expanded on a large scale. This perspective uses Jatropha curcas L. as a model biofuel crop and reviews the biological traits and the circumstantial factors which may contribute to its invasive behavior. J. curcas has recently received much attention as a biodiesel 'wonder crop' and is being planted at large scale without scientific study on its invasiveness risk. We applied two risk assessment frameworks to provide an ex-ante invasiveness risk assessment and obtained that J. curcas is a species with a high invasiveness risk, which is in contradiction with recent experimental evidence. We discuss the limitations of the available risk assessment frameworks, which may have led to unreliable prediction. We interpret the outcome of this theoretical exercise with some recommendations for the selection, introduction, cultivation, and processing stages of J. curcas and other biofuel crops to minimize invasiveness risk. Finally we point to the responsibilities of investors and governments and the need for integrated research of the whole biofuel production supply chain to avoid bio-invasions. © 2013 Society of Chemical Industry and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.FLWNAinfo:eu-repo/semantics/publishe

Unilateral Renal Ischemia-Reperfusion as a Robust Model for Acute to Chronic Kidney Injury in Mice

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is an underestimated, yet important risk factor for development of chronic kidney disease (CKD). Even after initial total recovery of renal function, some patients develop progressive and persistent deterioration of renal function and these patients are more likely to progress to end-stage renal disease (ESRD). Animal models are indispensable for unravelling the mechanisms underlying this progression towards CKD and ESRD and for the development of new therapeutic strategies in its prevention or treatment. Ischemia (i.e. hypoperfusion after surgery, bleeding, dehydration, shock, or sepsis) is a major aetiology in human AKI, yet unilateral ischemia-reperfusion is a rarely used animal model for research on CKD and fibrosis. Here, we demonstrate in C57Bl/6J mice, by both histology and gene expression, that unilateral ischemia-reperfusion without contralateral nephrectomy is a very robust model to study the progression from acute renal injury to long-term tubulo-interstitial fibrosis, i.e. the histopathological hallmark of CKD. Furthermore, we report that the extent of renal fibrosis, in terms of Col I, TGFβ, CCN2 and CCN3 expression and collagen I immunostaining, increases with increasing body temperature during ischemia and ischemia-time. Thus, varying these two main determinants of ischemic injury allows tuning the extent of the long-term fibrotic outcome in this model. Finally, in order to cover the whole practical finesse of ischemia-reperfusion and allow model and data transfer, we provide a referenced overview on crucial technical issues (incl. anaesthesia, analgesia, and pre- and post-operative care) with the specific aim of putting starters in the right direction of implementing ischemia in their research and stimulate them, as well as the community, to have a critical view on ischemic literature data