Rodent models of osteoporosis

Developers

Antonia Sophocleous and Aymen I. Idris

Description of the technology

The technology provides male and female rodent models of osteoporosis. The description of models, methods of performing the surgical procedures for their creation, and choice of reliable and safe anaesthetics are presented in form of protocol. The latter is also discussed post-operative care, including analgesia administration.

Ovariectomy in rodents is a procedure where ovaries are surgically excised. Hormonal changes resulting from ovary removal lead to an oestrogen-deprived state, which enhances bone remodelling, causes bone loss and increases bone fracture risk. Therefore, ovariectomy has been considered as the most common preclinical model for understanding the pathophysiology of menopause-associated events and for developing new treatment strategies for tackling post-menopausal osteoporosis.

This protocol also provides a detailed description of orchidectomy, a model for androgen-deficient osteoporosis in rodents. Endocrine changes following testes removal lead to hypogonadism, which results in accelerated bone loss, increasing osteoporosis risk. Orchidectomised rodent models have been proposed to mimic male osteoporosis and therefore remain a valuable tool for understanding androgen deficiency in aged men.

The advantage of the technology is that it provides sufficiently comprehensive guide for creation of osteoporosis models in laboratory rodents, taking into account international practice and reminder that all animal procedures must conducted under control of regulatory ethics committees.

Practical application

Technology gives an important laboratory protocol for creation of osteoporosis models to use in experiments for study of this disease, investigations of aging processes, as well as drug discovery for osteoporosis treatment, search new perspective geroprotectors, etc.

Laboratories

• Rheumatic Diseases Unit, MRC Institute of Genetics and Molecular Medicine, Centre for Genomic and Experimental Medicine, Western General Hospital, University of Edinburgh, Edinburgh (UK)
• Muscular-skeletal pharmacology, Academic Unit of Bone Biology, Mellanby Centre for Bone Research, Department of human metabolism, University of Sheffield, Sheffield (UK)

Links

Publications

• Sophocleous, A. & Idris, A.I. «Rodent models of osteoporosis." 3 BoneKEy Reports (2014): 614.
• Idris AI. «Ovariectomy/orchidectomy in rodents." In: Helfrich MH, Ralston SH (eds). Bone Research Protocols, Methods in Molecular Biology. Humana Press: New York, 2012, pp 545–551.
• Sophocleous A, et al. «The type 2 cannabinoid receptor regulates bone mass and ovariectomy-induced bone loss by affecting osteoblast differentiation and bone formation." 152 Endocrinology (2011): 2141–2149.