Data from: The chinchilla as a novel animal model of pregnancy

Several parameters are important when choosing the most appropriate animal to model human obstetrics including gestation period, number of fetuses per gestation, and placental structure. The domesticated long-tailed chinchilla (Chinchilla lanigera) is a well-suited and appropriate animal model of pregnancy that often will carry only one offspring and has a long gestation period of 105-115 days. Furthermore, the chinchilla placenta is of the hemomonochorial labyrinthine type and is therefore comparable to the human villous hemomonochorial placenta. This proof-of-concept study demonstrated the feasibility in laboratory settings, and demonstrated the potential of the pregnant chinchilla as an animal model for obstetric research and its potential usefulness for non-invasive measurements in the placenta. We demonstrate measurements of the placental and fetal metabolism (demonstrated in-vivo by hyperpolarized MRI and in-vitro by qPCR analyses), placental vessels (demonstrated ex-vivo by contrast-enhanced CT angiography), and overall anatomy (demonstrated in-vivo by whole-body CT).在遴选适配人类妇产科学研究的最优动物模型时，需考量多项关键参数，涵盖妊娠期、每胎产仔数与胎盘结构。家养长尾毛丝鼠（Chinchilla lanigera）是一款适配性极佳的妊娠动物模型，其通常每胎仅产1仔，且妊娠期长达105~115天。此外，毛丝鼠的胎盘属于血绒毛膜迷路型（hemomonochorial labyrinthine type）胎盘，因此与人类的绒毛状血绒毛膜胎盘（human villous hemomonochorial placenta）具有高度可比性。本项概念验证研究在实验室环境中证实了该模型的应用可行性，同时证明了妊娠毛丝鼠作为妇产科学研究动物模型的潜力，以及其在胎盘无创检测中的应用价值。本研究完成了多维度检测：胎盘与胎儿代谢的相关检测（通过超极化磁共振成像（hyperpolarized MRI）实现活体检测、通过定量聚合酶链反应（qPCR）分析实现体外检测）、胎盘血管的相关检测（通过增强CT血管造影（contrast-enhanced CT angiography）实现离体检测）以及整体解剖结构的相关检测（通过全身CT扫描实现活体检测）。