Defining a new animal model of heart failure
Human heart failure is a multifactorial and heterogeneous clinical syndrome that can be caused by numerous etiologies that lead to diverse clinical manifestations in patients. Over the last several decades, animal models of human heart failure have served as informative experimental platforms to investigate the mechanisms, causes, and progression of disease, and have led to important clinical trials and novel therapies. From dogs to zebrafish to transgenic mice (and even yeast!), animal models have provided critical insights into the cellular and molecular derangements that lead to heart failure in humans. This mini-review focuses on rodent models of heart failure, which are widely used for drug screens and target validation 15, 22, 27 . Many of the current rodent models of heart failure are not amenable to high-throughput screening approaches, either because they­ are methodologically complex or have only a subtle cardiac phenotype. No single animal model of heart failure can fully replicate the complexities of human heart failure nor serve as the optimal experimental platform, yet with the burgeoning epidemic of heart failure6, 19, 28, 39 , new drugs and new models are needed. Recent advances in chemogenetics have led to the development of new animal models that may provide important insights into human heart failure pathophysiology and identify novel therapeutic targets.