Mouse model of chronic and binge ethanol feeding (the NIAAA model).

Abstract

Chronic alcohol consumption is a leading cause of chronic liver disease worldwide, leading to cirrhosis and hepatocellular carcinoma. Currently, the most widely used model for alcoholic liver injury is ad libitum feeding with the Lieber-DeCarli liquid diet containing ethanol for 4-6 weeks; however, this model, without the addition of a secondary insult, only induces mild steatosis, slight elevation of serum alanine transaminase (ALT) and little or no inflammation. Here we describe a simple mouse model of alcoholic liver injury by chronic ethanol feeding (10-d ad libitum oral feeding with the Lieber-DeCarli ethanol liquid diet) plus a single binge ethanol feeding. This protocol for chronic-plus-single-binge ethanol feeding synergistically induces liver injury, inflammation and fatty liver, which mimics acute-on-chronic alcoholic liver injury in patients. This feeding protocol can also be extended to chronic feeding for longer periods of time up to 8 weeks plus single or multiple binges. Chronic-binge ethanol feeding leads to high blood alcohol levels; thus, this simple model will be very useful for the study of alcoholic liver disease (ALD) and of other organs damaged by alcohol consumption.

• Authors: Adeline Bertola, Stephanie Mathews, Sung Hwan Ki, Hua Wang, Bin Gao
• Journal: Nature protocols (Nat Protoc) Vol. 8 Issue 3 Pg. 627-37 (Mar 2013) ISSN: 1750-2799 [Electronic] England
• PMID: 23449255 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, N.I.H., Intramural)

Chemical References

• Ethanol

Topics

• Alcoholism (pathology)
• Animals
• Binge Drinking (pathology)
• Disease Models, Animal
• Ethanol (pharmacology)
• Liver Diseases, Alcoholic (pathology)
• Male
• Mice
• Mice, Inbred C57BL
• National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (U.S.)
• United States