Establishment of high flow pulmonary hypertension model in rats

Objective To establish a high-flow type of rat pulmonary hypertension model which can recapitulate clinical characteristics of pulmonary arterial hypertension in congenital heart disease with systemic-to-pulmonary shunts.Methods The animal model established by either left common carotid artery-external jugular vein shunts,or ligation of the left pulmonary artery,or combination of the two methods.Changes in mean pulmonary artery pressure (mPAP),right ventricular hypertrophy index of right ventricle to left ventricle plus interventricular septum (RV/LV + S),the ratio of vascular wall thickness to vascular external diameter (WT％) and the ratio of vascular wall area to total vascular area (WA％) were observed to compare different surgical approaches during postoperative 8 week.The changes of above indexes were also observed following combination of the two methods at 4,8 and 12 week postoperation.Results As compared with control group,the mPAP and RV/LV + S in combination of shunt and ligation of the left pulmonary artery group were significantly increased at 8th and 12th week (P ＜ 0.01) ; Compared with control group,the WT％ and WA％ also elevated obviously (P ＜ 0.01).Conclusion Combination of shunt and ligation of the left pulmonary artery is an easy and reliable approach to create high flow-induced pulmonary arterial hypertension in rats,and can be used to study the pathogenesis of pulmonary arterial hypertension caused by congenital heart diseases. Key words: Pulmonary hypertension;  Pulmonary vascular remodeling;  Congenital heart disease ;  Systemic-to-pulmonary shunts ;  Models, animal