Qiao YJ, Song XY, Zhang LD, Li F, Zhang HQ, Zhou SH. Comparative study of a rabbit model of spinal tuberculosis using different concentrations of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. World J Orthop 2025; 16(1): 101424 [PMID: 39850038 DOI: 10.5312/wjo.v16.i1.101424]
Corresponding Author of This Article
Sheng-Hu Zhou, PhD, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Orthopedics, the 940th Hospital of Joint Logistic Support Force of Chinese People’s Liberation Army, No. 333 South Riverside Road, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu Province, China. zhoushenghu120@163.com
Research Domain of This Article
Medicine, Research & Experimental
Article-Type of This Article
Basic Study
Open-Access Policy of This Article
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/
Yong-Jie Qiao, Department of Joint Surgery, The Second Hospital & Clinical Medical School, Lanzhou University, Lanzhou 730050, Gansu Province, China
Yong-Jie Qiao, Xiao-Yang Song, Hao-Qiang Zhang, Sheng-Hu Zhou, Department of Orthopedics, The 940th Hospital of Joint Logistic Support Force of Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu Province, China
Lv-Dan Zhang, Department of Respiratory Medicine, The 940th Hospital of Joint Logistic Support Force of Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Lanzhou 730050, Gansu Province, China
Feng Li, Department of Orthopaedics, The 943rd Hospital of Joint Logistic Support Force of Chinese People’s Liberation Army, Wuwei 733099, Gansu Province, China
Co-first authors: Yong-Jie Qiao and Xiao-Yang Song.
Co-corresponding authors: Sheng-Hu Zhou and Hao-Qiang Zhang.
Author contributions: Qiao YJ and Song XY contribute equally to this study as co-first authors; Zhou SH and Zhang HQ contribute equally to this study as co-corresponding authors; Qiao YJ, Song XY and Zhang LD participated in writing the manuscript; Liu P and Li F performed the data collection; Qiao YJ and Zhang LD performed the radiologic imaging analysis; Zhang HQ performed the pathological features analysis; Zhou SH participated in following postoperative effect, and helped examine and correct the manuscript; all authors have read and approved the final manuscript.
Supported by Lanzhou City Science and Technology Development Guiding Plan Project, No. 2023-ZD-170; Lanzhou Science and Technology Plan Project, No. 2023-2-11; and High-Level Talent Training Project At the 940th Hospital of the Joint Logistics Force, No. 2024-G3-5.
Institutional animal care and use committee statement: Ethical approval was obtained from the Ethics Committee of the 940th Hospital of Joint Logistic Support Force of Chinese People’s Liberation Army (ID: 2020KYLL138). Informed consent was sought from all the members before the beginning of the study.
Conflict-of-interest statement: All the authors report no relevant conflicts of interest for this article.
Data sharing statement: Data sharing statement: Participants gave informed consent for data sharing.
ARRIVE guidelines statement: The authors have read the ARRIVE guidelines, and the manuscript was prepared and revised according to the ARRIVE guidelines.
Open-Access: This article is an open-access article that was selected by an in-house editor and fully peer-reviewed by external reviewers. It is distributed in accordance with the Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial (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: https://creativecommons.org/Licenses/by-nc/4.0/
Corresponding author: Sheng-Hu Zhou, PhD, Associate Chief Physician, Department of Orthopedics, the 940th Hospital of Joint Logistic Support Force of Chinese People’s Liberation Army, No. 333 South Riverside Road, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu Province, China. zhoushenghu120@163.com
Received: September 13, 2024 Revised: November 3, 2024 Accepted: December 19, 2024 Published online: January 18, 2025 Processing time: 121 Days and 17 Hours
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Tuberculosis is among the most devastating infectious diseases worldwide. Spinal tuberculosis is not easy to detect at an early stage, which without effective treatment often leads to spinal deformity and spinal cord damage which in turn cause complications such as paraplegia and quadriplegia. In this study, we established a model using three concentrations of bacteria and carried out a comprehensive evaluation of the model by imaging, general observations, and histopathological and bacteriological studies.
AIM
To establish a rabbit model of spinal tuberculosis and examine the effect on the model’s efficacy using different concentrations of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (M. tuberculosis) inoculum.
METHODS
New Zealand rabbits were randomly divided into experimental, control and blank groups. The experimental and control animals were sensitized with complete Freund′s adjuvant, a hole was drilled beneath the upper endplate of the L6 vertebral body and filled with gelfoam sponge. The experimental group was divided into three subgroups (experimental 1, experimental 2, experimental 3) and infused with M. tuberculosis suspension at various concentrations. The control group was inoculated with saline and the blank group received no treatment. The 12-week post-operative survival rates were 100%, 80% and 30% in the experimental groups inoculated with concentrations of 106, 107 and 108 CFU/mL bacteria, respectively.
RESULTS
The survival rate of the control and blank groups was 100%. Vertebral body destruction at 8 weeks in the three experimental groups as determined by X-ray analysis was 33.3%, 62.5% and 66.7%, and by computed tomography (CT) and 3-dimensional CT 44.4%, 75% and 100%, respectively. At 12 weeks, the figures were 44.4%, 75% and 100% by X-ray analysis and 44.4%, 100% and 100% by CT and 3-dimensional CT, respectively. All surviving rabbits of the experimental groups had vertebral destruction. The positive bacterial culture rates were 22.2%, 75% and 66.7%, respectively, in the experimental groups. After being sensitized with complete Freund's adjuvant, large differences were observed in the extent of spinal tuberculosis after inoculation of the rabbits with different concentrations of H37RV standard M. tuberculosis.
CONCLUSION
The experimental 1 had a low success rate at establishing an infection. The experimental 3 resulted in high mortality and complication rates. The experimental 2 was optimum for establishing a spinal tuberculosis model based on the high level of symptoms observed and the low rabbit mortality.
Core Tip: One study reported having established osteoarticular tuberculosis using non-sensitized animals; however, the result of the experiment was unsatisfactory because of the high mortality rate. In recent studies, Liu and Geng successfully established a spinal tuberculosis model in New Zealand rabbits after sensitizing the rabbits with complete Freund’s adjuvant. However, they established the model without making a comparative study of the effect of using different bacterial concentrations. In this study, we established a model using three concentrations of bacteria and carried out a comprehensive evaluation of the model by imaging, general observations, and histopathological and bacteriological studies.
