Small animal models of atherosclerosis

The area of cardiovascular research is day by day expanding and the small animal models play a very crucial role in this onward journey. An animal model is a non-human animal that has a disease or injury that is similar to a human condition. The choice of animal models in cardiovascular research is dictated by the size consideration alone .Atherosclerosis is a pathological process, which occurs, in large conduit arteries. They are due to focal accumulation of cells within the intima of the artery, both intra and extra cellular lipids, fibrous tissues, complex proteoglycans, mineral blood and blood products. Even though there is no one perfect animal model that completely replicates the stages of human atherosclerosis, cholesterol feeding and mechanical endothelial injury are two common features shared by most models of atherosclerosis Several characteristic of the rabbit make it an excellent model for the study of atherosclerosis. Several animals have been used for the study of atherosclerosis, such as the non human primates, swine, mice, guinea pigs and hamsters. With the advent of genetic engineering, transgenic mouse models have supplemented the classical dietary cholesterol induced disease models such as the cholesterol-fed hamster, rabbit, pig and monkey .This article intends to review the various established small animal models of atherosclerosis.A thorough search of articles published in reputed journals was done by typing the keywords animal models,atherosclerosis,small animals was done to locate the information,all published articles and books were included in collecting information and data was synthesised for the present article.