2024, Vol. 28 ›› Issue (2): 263-266

A systematic review of mouse model construction for sarcopenia

Xie Peng1, Zhang Jiang2, Deng Xiaolei2, Wei Bo2, Hou Decai2   

Abstract: BACKGROUND: Sarcopenia is a progressive, generalized skeletal muscle disease that is closely related to the occurrence of osteoarthritis, fractures, limb disability and death in the elderly. Establishing animal models of sarcopenia is essential to understand the pathophysiology of sarcopenia and to identify effective treatment strategies.
OBJECTIVE: To review the evaluation criteria of mouse models of sarcopenia and the modeling methods of mouse models of sarcopenia, and to analyze and compare the advantages and disadvantages of various modeling methods, in order to provide reference for the research and diagnosis and treatment of sarcopenia.
METHODS: “Sarcopenia, skeletal muscle aging, mouse model, animal model” in Chinese and English were used as Chinese and English search terms, respectively. The search formula was “(sarcopenia OR skeletal muscle aging) AND (mouse model OR animal model).” CNKI, WanFang and PubMed were searched for related articles published from January 2010 and October 2022. A total of 59 articles were finally included for analysis.

RESULTS AND CONCLUSION: There is a faster modeling time in SAMP8 mice and the type of muscle atrophy is consistent with that of patients with sarcopenia. Therefore, it is an ideal model. Although the surgical method can successfully induce muscle atrophy, it requires precise surgical operation, which is difficult and time-consuming. Hindlimb suspension modeling in mice is similar to that of the elderly and can be regarded as an effective model of senile sarcopenia. Although reagent injection molding is simple to perform, both the dose and number of days of administration of reagents are not clear and need to be further investigated. Transgenic mouse models are less commonly used and their model stability needs further study. The search for a mouse model with low cost, short time consumption and high simulation of human sarcopenia is still a future research direction.

Key words: sarcopenia, mouse model, skeletal muscle aging, modeling method, pathogenesis, research progress