Reevaluation of spontaneous and frequently diagnosed disease in companion animals and its application in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine

Abstract

In the development of novel tissue engineering and regenerative medicine techniques in humans, preclinical studies using laboratory animal models are required to examine the pathogenic mechanisms and the potential treatment of diseases for the clinics and an indispensable step for determination of their safety and efficacy. Regrettably, the etiological pathology of diseases of spontaneous diseases may not be exactly the same despite the similarities in signs and symptoms observed in artificial laboratory animal models. Therefore, the artificial laboratory animal model is not fully suitable for studies on specific target diseases. However, the animals, especially companion animal, that have spontaneous and frequently occurring diseases due to genetic and environmental factors mostly likely mimic the naive pathology of diseases in humans. Consequently, these species can be better subjects of preclinical studies and veterinary clinical trials in order to possibly gauge the effectiveness of the therapeutic strategies in the clinical stage. Hence, research on the spontaneous and frequently diagnosed diseases of animals predisposed by the type of breeding, age, and gender that are applicable in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine could be an important data for future advancements. In this study, we conducted a survey on the spontaneous and common diseases of canine and feline species to provide a foundation on the effectiveness and practical application of clinical studies. Therefore, this review can contribute significant development in tissue engineering and regenerative medicine in the future. Tissue Eng Regen Med 2015;12(Suppl 2):84-93