Abstract
In light of an enhanced awareness of ethical questions and ever increasing costs when working with animals in biomedical research, there is a dedicated and sometimes fierce debate concerning the (lack of) reproducibility of animal models and their relevance for human inflammatory diseases. Despite evident advancements in searching for alternatives, that is, replacing, reducing, and refining animal experiments—the three R’s of Russel and Burch (1959)—understanding the complex interactions of the cells of the immune system, the nervous system and the affected tissue/organ during inflammation critically relies on in vivo models. Consequently, scientific advancement and ultimately novel therapeutic interventions depend on improving the reproducibility of animal inflammation models. As a prelude to the remaining hands-on protocols described in this volume, here, we summarize potential pitfalls of preclinical animal research and provide resources and background reading on how to avoid them.
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Acknowledgments
The authors thank Dr. C.M.A. Thuring and Drs. M. van der Meulen-Frank, veterinarians at the UMC Groningen animal facility (CDP) for textual contributions on animal work and Box 3, and Dr. G.J. te Meerman for contributing to Box 1. In addition, we are grateful to several people for providing items for Box 3, including Drs. Janneke Samsom, Bart Eggen, Louis Boon, Nieske Brouwer and Chaitali Paul. Funding was partly provided by NWO VENI (#016.161.072) to S.M.K., and by the Dutch MS Research Foundation (program grant to the MS Center Noord Nederland, MSCNN). B.E.C. was an NWO VIDI fellow (#917.76.365) and is currently supported by the DFG (CL 419/2-1) and the Research Center for Immunotherapy (FZI) Mainz.
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Laman, J.D., Kooistra, S.M., Clausen, B.E. (2017). Reproducibility Issues: Avoiding Pitfalls in Animal Inflammation Models. In: Clausen, B., Laman, J. (eds) Inflammation. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1559. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-6786-5_1
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