A cloned pig model for examining atherosclerosis induced by high fat, high cholesterol diets.

The pig is a recognized model for the onset of coronary heart disease and heart attacks. Previous studies have shown that serum cholesterol levels in the pig can be elevated using a high fat, high cholesterol (HFHC) diet. What has been lacking is a genetically defined model corresponding to human ApoE4 susceptibility that can be linked to diets capable of inducing atherosclerosis.

Genomics and clinical medicine: rationale for creating and effectively evaluating animal models.

Because resolving human complex diseases is difficult, appropriate biomedical models must be developed and validated. In the past, researchers have studied diseases either by characterizing a human clinical disease and choosing the most appropriate animal model, or by characterizing a naturally occurring or induced mutant animal and identifying which human disease it best resembled. Although there has been a great deal of progress through the use of these methods, such models have intrinsic faults that limit their relevance to clinical medicine.