Establishment of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease rat models by passive cigarette smoking and intratracheal instillation of lipopolysaccharide

AIM:To establish rat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease(COPD) models by passive cigarette smoking plus intratracheal instillation of lipopolysacchride(LPS) or passive cigarette smoking only, which would be similar to the pathogenesis of human COPD. METHODS:48 Wistar rats were randomly divided into 4 groups.(1) Healthy control I group(n=12), rats were bred 4 weeks;healthy control II group(n=12), rats were bred for 3months. (2) Model group I (n=12), 200μg lipopolysaccharide(LPS) was instilled intratracheally once for every two weeks and the rats were exposured to 5% of cigarette smoke, 0.5 h/d for 4 weeks.(3) Model group II(n=12),rats were exposed to 5% of cigarette smoke, 0.5 h/d for 3 months. The pathologic changes of airways and lung tissues, pulmonary function and blood gas analysis were determined. The airway wall lymphocytes and alveolar macrophages were counted. The cross areas of epithelial layer, smooth muscle layer and lamina propria of bronchi were measured. The hydroxyproline of lung tissue homogenates was determined by biochemistry method.RESULTS:The pathologic changes of airways and lung tissue of two models were similar to but milder than those of COPD patients(biopsy data). The collagen deposition and the cross areas of epithelial layer and smooth muscle layer in airway walls of two model groups were significantly increased than those of control groups(P＜0.01,P＜0.05).FEV_0.3/FVC% of two model groups, PaO₂ and SaO₂ of model I group were significantly decreased, while R_i and R_e in model I group were significantly increased than that of control I group(P＜0.05). The PaCO₂ and the counts of lymphocytes and alveolar macrophages of both model groups were significantly increased than those of the control groups (P＜0.01). Lots of alveolar macrophages had phagocyted smoke granules. The amounts of hydroxyproline of two model groups were significantly increased than those of control group((P＜0.05) and were negatively related to the FEV_0.3/FVC%, respectively (P＜0.01,P＜0.01) and positively related to airway resistance of model I group(P＜0.01). CONCLUSIONS:COPD rat models were successfully established by passive cigarette smoking plus intratracheal instillation of LPS and cigarette smoking only. The pathologic changes were similar but milder than those of COPD patients. The airway obstruction of model I group was more severe than that of model II group, but they have no significant difference.