Objective: To establish a rat model of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease through smoking, protease infusion and a combination of the two methods, and to evaluate the effectiveness of the model from the aspects of inflammation, imaging and pathology.
Method: Use smoking, protease injection and a combination of the two methods to simulate COPD rats. Each group of rats is 60, 30, and 30 rats, and the control group is 20 rats. The rats are weighed weekly. Smoking and control rats were modeled for 24 hours, 1, 2, 4, 8, 12, 16, 20, and 24 weeks, respectively, and protease and protease + smoking groups were modeled for 24 hours, 1, 2 And 4 modeling. Cytokine detection, microCT and pathological examination were performed at the 8th and 12th week respectively. For statistical analysis, we used distributed analysis or Kruskal-Wallis H test. Results From the 7th week of smoking, the weight gain of rats in the smoking and protease+smoking groups was significantly slower than that of the control group (P\u003c0.05). The levels of interleukin-10 in the protease group and the protease+smoke group at 24, 1, 2 and 4 weeks were significantly lower than those of the control group (P\u003c0.05). The concentration of matrix metalloproteinase-9 in the protease group and the protease+smoke group at 24h was significantly higher than that of the control group (P \u003c0.05). In the protease group, protease + smoking group at the 4th week and smoking group at the 8th week, the changes of emphysema can be seen on the Micro-CT image and pathological image. Conclusion The use of smoking, protease and protease + smoking methods can successfully construct a rat COPD model.