An Animal Goat Model of Lumbar Intervertebral Disc Degeneration Using Minimally Invasive Sur-gery

Abstract：Objective To make goat model of lumbar intervertebral disc degeneration to explorer a new method to create large animal model. Methods Twenty Bordeaux goats were divided to two groups. Group A underwent full-endoscopic tech-nique of minimally invasive surgery,the group B is sham-operation group. Original dates of all lumbar intervertebral disc were detected by MRI before operation. Full-endoscopic technique of minimally invasive surgery was used to make animal model of lumbar intervertebral disc degeneration. Sham-operation group accape the same technique but the structure of lumbar interverte-bral disc was not injured. Two months later,MRI test was taken again and lumbar intervertebral discs were harvested after ani-mals sacrificed. Comparation of MRI scores,histology scores and gene expression including HIF-1、TNF-a、TGF-β、NFκB、IL-1in nucleus pulposus tissue were taken in these two groups. Results There were statistically significant differences in MRI scores and histology scores of these two groups(P ﹤ 0. 05). TNF-a、TGF-β、IL-1 gene expression also had a significant differ-ence in these two groups,further more the gene expression of HIF-1 had a statistically significant difference(P ﹤ 0. 01). The gene expression of TNF-a between group A and group B had no statistically difference.(P ﹥ 0. 05)Conclusion The statisti-cally significant differences in MRI scores and histology scores illustrate that full-endoscopic technique of minimally invasive surgery successfully estabilish a goat model of lumbar intervertebral disc degeneration. Also the significant different gene ex-pression of HIF-1、TNF-a、TGF-β、IL-1in nucleus pulposus tissue of the two groups further prove this conclusion with molecule evidence.