Introduction to animal models of pulmonary hypertension

Pulmonary arterial hypertension(PAH)is a multifactorial pulmonary vascular disease accompanied by abnormal increase of pulmonary artery pressure with complicated pathogenesis, which leads to progressive right heart failure and death.It is necessary to establish an animal model that can simulate the pathophysiological characteristics of PAH in order to study the pathogenesis of PAH further.Animal models of PAH act as effective methods to study the pathogenesis, pathophysiology, development, prognosis and treatment of PAH.Classic PAH models include chronically hypoxia, drug injection, and so forth.Although animal models of PAH differ from each other, there is still no widely accepted animal model which can totally imitate human PAH.This review summarizes animal models of PAH in order to provide reference for choosing experimental animals of PAH and to establish a better animal model similar to human PAH. Key words: Pulmonary arterial hypertension; Animal model; Monocrotaline