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Copyright ©The Author(s) 2017. Published by Baishideng Publishing Group Inc. All rights reserved.
World J Exp Med. Aug 20, 2017; 7(3): 58-77
Published online Aug 20, 2017. doi: 10.5493/wjem.v7.i3.58
Surgical and immune reconstitution murine models in bone marrow research: Potential for exploring mechanisms in sepsis, trauma and allergy
Pedro Xavier-Elsas, Renato Nunes Ferreira, Maria Ignez C Gaspar-Elsas
Pedro Xavier-Elsas, Renato Nunes Ferreira, Department of Immunology, Instituto de Microbiologia Paulo de Góes, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro 21941-590, Brazil
Maria Ignez C Gaspar-Elsas, Department of Pediatrics, Instituto Nacional de Saúde da Mulher, da Criança e do Adolescente Fernandes Figueira, FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro 22250-020, Brazil
Author contributions: All authors contributed to this manuscript.
Conflict-of-interest statement: The authors declare no conflicting interests exist related to this article.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article which was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial (CC BY-NC 4.0) license, which permits others to distribute, remix, adapt, build upon this work non-commercially, and license their derivative works on different terms, provided the original work is properly cited and the use is non-commercial. See: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Correspondence to: Pedro Xavier-Elsas, MD, PhD, Associate Professor, Department of Immunology, Instituto de Microbiologia Paulo de Góes, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Bloco I, Room I-2-066, Rio de Janeiro 21941-590, Brazil. pxelsas@micro.ufrj.br
Telephone: +55-21-996360108
Received: March 27, 2017
Peer-review started: March 28, 2017
First decision: May 9, 2017
Revised: June 11, 2017
Accepted: June 30, 2017
Article in press: July 3, 2017
Published online: August 20, 2017
Processing time: 143 Days and 21.5 Hours
Abstract

Bone marrow, the vital organ which maintains lifelong hemopoiesis, currently receives considerable attention, as a source of multiple cell types which may play important roles in repair at distant sites. This emerging function, distinct from, but closely related to, bone marrow roles in innate immunity and inflammation, has been characterized through a number of strategies. However, the use of surgical models in this endeavour has hitherto been limited. Surgical strategies allow the experimenter to predetermine the site, timing, severity and invasiveness of injury; to add or remove aggravating factors (such as infection and defects in immunity) in controlled ways; and to manipulate the context of repair, including reconstitution with selected immune cell subpopulations. This endows surgical models overall with great potential for exploring bone marrow responses to injury, inflammation and infection, and its roles in repair and regeneration. We review three different murine surgical models, which variously combine trauma with infection, antigenic stimulation, or immune reconstitution, thereby illuminating different aspects of the bone marrow response to systemic injury in sepsis, trauma and allergy. They are: (1) cecal ligation and puncture, a versatile model of polymicrobial sepsis; (2) egg white implant, an intriguing model of eosinophilia induced by a combination of trauma and sensitization to insoluble allergen; and (3) ectopic lung tissue transplantation, which allows us to dissect afferent and efferent mechanisms leading to accumulation of hemopoietic cells in the lungs. These models highlight the gain in analytical power provided by the association of surgical and immunological strategies.

Keywords: Bone-marrow; Trauma; Repair; Transplantation; Surgery

Core tip: Bone-marrow generates multiple cell types which may play important roles in repair at distant sites. The use of surgical models in the characterization of this emerging function has hitherto been limited. Surgical strategies allow nevertheless the experimenter to predetermine the site, timing, severity and invasiveness of injury; to add or remove aggravating factors (such as infection and defects in immunity) in controlled ways; and to manipulate the context of repair, including reconstitution with selected immune cell subpopulations. Here we review surgical models with great potential for exploring bone-marrow responses to injury, inflammation and infection.