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Comparison of mouse models of depression induced by different modeling methods

LI Pei-Pei^1,2, WANG Shuo¹, CHEN Tao¹, LONG Ruo-Lan^1,2, FENG Dan^1,2, WEI Yang-Fei^1,2, SONG Zhi-Bo^1,2, LI Yu-Lin¹, SUN Jing^1,*

¹Qinghai Key Laboratory of Qinghai-Tibet Plateau Biological Resource, Northwest Institute of Plateau Biology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xining 810008, China；²University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, China

Abstract

The present article was aimed to compare the effectiveness of different induction methods for depression models. Kunming mice were randomly divided into chronic unpredictable mild stress (CUMS) group, corticosterone (CORT) group, and CUMS+CORT (CC) group. The CUMS group received CUMS stimulation for 4 weeks, and the CORT group received subcutaneous injection of 20 mg/kg CORT into the groin every day for 3 weeks. The CC group received both CUMS stimulation and CORT administration. Each group was assigned a control group. After modeling, forced swimming test (FST), tail suspension test (TST) and sucrose preference test (SPT) were used to detect the behavioral changes of mice, and the serum levels of brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), 5-hydroxytryptamine (5-HT) and CORT were detected with ELISA kits. Attenuated total refraction (ATR) spectra of mouse serum were collected and analyzed. HE staining was used to detect morphological changes in mouse brain tissue. The results showed that the weight of model mice from the CUMS and CC groups decreased significantly. There was no significant change in immobility time of model mice from the three groups in FST and TST, while the glucose preference of model mice from the CUMS and CC groups was significantly reduced (P < 0.05). The serum 5-HT levels of model mice from the CORT and CC groups were significantly reduced, while the serum BDNF and CORT levels of model mice from the CUMS, CORT, and CC groups showed no significant changes. Compared with their respective control groups, the three groups showed no significant difference in the one-dimensional spectrum of serum ATR. The difference spectrum analysis results of the first derivative of the spectrogram showed that the CORT group had the greatest difference from its respective control group, followed by the CUMS group. The structures of hippocampus in the model mice from the three groups were all destroyed. These results suggest that both CORT and CC treatments can successfully construct a depression model, and the CORT model is more effective than the CC model. Therefore, CORT induction can be used to establish a depression model in Kunming mice.

Key words: depression model; chronic unpredictable mild stress; corticosterone

Received: 　　Accepted:

Corresponding author: 孙菁　　E-mail: sunj@nwipb.cas.cn

Citing This Article：

LI Pei-Pei, WANG Shuo, CHEN Tao, LONG Ruo-Lan, FENG Dan, WEI Yang-Fei, SONG Zhi-Bo, LI Yu-Lin, SUN Jing. Comparison of mouse models of depression induced by different modeling methods. Acta Physiol Sin 2023; 75 (3): 379-389 (in Chinese with English abstract).