The equine model refers to the use of horses as a biological model in scientific research to study various physiological and pathological processes. Horses are utilized in research due to their unique physiological characteristics, which can parallel certain aspects of human health and disease. This model is applied in studies ranging from musculoskeletal disorders and respiratory diseases to metabolic syndromes and reproductive health. Research involving equine models often investigates disease mechanisms, therapeutic interventions, and preventative strategies. This page gathers peer-reviewed research studies and scholarly articles that explore the application, benefits, and limitations of using horses as models in scientific research, providing insights into equine and comparative biomedical studies.
This Opinion piece is offered as a cursory overview of sperm development, function, and transport through the eyes of an equine veterinarian. My professional background is predominantly clinical in nature, but my fascination with sperm function and preservation has led to a fairly sizeable review of the scientific literature over the years in hopes of extracting laboratory findings that have application to my daily activities in the clinical arena. Spermatozoa are quite unique among cellular types with regard to both form and function, and represent the only endogenously derived cell type that...
Equine recurrent uveitis serves as a spontaneous model for human autoimmune uveitis. Unpredictable relapses and ongoing inflammation in the eyes of diseased horses as well as in humans lead to destruction of the retina and finally result in blindness. However, the molecular mechanisms leading to inflammation and retinal degeneration are not well understood. An initial screening for differentially regulated proteins in sera of uveitic cases compared to healthy controls revealed an increase of the alternative pathway complement component factor B in ERU cases. To determine the activation status ...
Micheau L, Audigié F, Moiroud C, Jacquet S.Disuse-induced bone loss during stall confinement and immobilization is a major concern in horses because it impairs recovery and increases susceptibility to further injury. Experimental models are needed to evaluate therapeutic options, but most available equine models rely on cast immobilization, which is technically demanding and may be associated with complications. This study aimed to assess a simpler and less restrictive model to induce a quantifiable decrease in bone density in horses. Six French Standardbred horses underwent eight weeks of stall confinement, with a wooden wedge fitted ...
Haugaard SL, Nissen SD, Schneider MJ, Birk JB, Carstensen H, Hopster-Iversen C, Altıntaş A, Barrès R, Kjøbsted R, Wojtaszewski JFP, Herum KM....High recurrence rates after atrial fibrillation (AF) treatment may be driven by myocardial changes induced by the arrhythmia itself. Understanding the molecular mechanisms behind these changes is crucial for developing targeted therapies and improving outcomes. Objective: To characterise the cardiac transcriptome of healthy horses and explore transcriptional changes associated with persistent AF (naturally occurring and tachypacing-induced). Methods: Case-control study. Methods: RNA-sequencing was performed on atrial and ventricular tissue samples collected from six horses with naturally occur...
Broothaers K, Jouneau A, Angel-Velez D, De Coster T, Festuccia N, Archilla C, Calderari S, Jouneau L, Van den Branden E, Peere S, Polfliet E....In vitro production of equine embryos has been performed using intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) for the last two decades. Since 2022, a repeatable protocol for conventional in vitro fertilization (IVF) provides a successful alternative. However, little is known about the influence of the fertilization method on embryo quality and the transcriptomic profile. In this study, we aimed to examine differentially expressed genes (DEGs) between ICSI and IVF embryos in the horse. Therefore, ten equine sibling blastocysts, produced in vitro by either ICSI or IVF from three different mares, were s...
Haugaard SL, Schneider MJ, Kjeldsen ST, Sattler SM, Bastrup JA, Saljic A, Birk JB, Hansen C, Synnestvedt JN, van Hunnik A, Sobota V, Carstensen H....Horses are one of the few animals that spontaneously develop atrial fibrillation (AF), making them a powerful model for studying AF mechanisms and treatment effects. Despite the initial effectiveness of treatment in horses and humans, AF-induced atrial remodeling compromises its long-term success. Observational studies have suggested that metformin may reduce the risk of AF, but its effects on progressive AF-induced atrial remodeling have yet to be evaluated in a high-fidelity large animal model. Unassigned: Here, we used a longitudinal horse model of tachypacing-induced self-sustained AF to c...
Aliani C, Lorenzetto Bologna C, Francia P, Bocchi L.Standing equine computed tomography (CT) acquisitions are susceptible to residual postural sway, which can introduce view-inconsistent motion and degrade image quality. External optical tracking based on ChArUco fiducials is a promising, low-cost strategy to enable projection-wise motion compensation, yet quantitative guidance on how camera-marker geometry affects pose-estimation performance remains limited. This CT-motivated benchtop study characterizes how the relative camera-ChArUco configuration influences both the accuracy (bias with respect to ground truth) and the precision (repeatabili...
Wójtowicz A, Sadowska A, Myszczyński K, Molcan T, Kaczmarek MM, Szóstek-Mioduchowska A.Fibrosis remains incompletely understood, particularly in terms of how immune mediators shape stromal programs. We used a spontaneous large‑animal model-endometrosis (equine endometrial fibrosis) to define how interleukin‑4 (IL‑4) reprograms fibroblasts from healthy and fibrotic endometrium. Primary fibroblasts were exposed to IL‑4 (10 ng/mL) for 48 or 96 h. At 48 h, bulk transcriptomes revealed 1307 differentially expressed genes (DEGs; 648 up, 659 down) and 1271 DEGs (645 up, 626 down) in fibroblasts derived from endometria without or with endometrosis, respectively. Enrichment an...
Zanacchi A, Fruscione F, Grasselli S, Razzuoli E, Pastorino L, Di Lisa D.Developing advanced preclinical in vitro cancer models is essential for understanding tumor biology, improving drug discovery, and enhancing the clinical translation of new therapies. Papillomaviruses (PVs) cause diverse lesions in humans and animals; notably, bovine papillomavirus (BPV) is the main cause of equine sarcoid, the most common skin tumor in horses. Its pathogenesis involves viral infection, fibroblast transformation, and extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling. These processes highlight the limitations of conventional two-dimensional (2D) culture systems, which fail to replicate the...
Hoerdemann M, Sahoo DK, Allbaugh RA, Kubai MA.To assess if an inexpensive, commercially available ultraviolet C (UV-C) light device with a peak emission of 275 nm can inhibit equine keratomycosis-associated pathogens located at different corneal depths in an ex vivo model. Methods: A controlled, randomized experimental design. Aspergillus fumigatus and Fusarium solani isolates were inoculated in fresh bovine corneoscleral transplants, superficially or at 450 μm of stromal depth for the ulcerative keratomycosis or stromal abscess model, respectively. After a minimum of 18 h of incubation, treatment groups received 15 s of UV-C li...
Gugole PM, Zannoni A, Iacono E, Merlo B.Cryopreservation of equine mature oocytes remains a major challenge in assisted reproduction, mainly due to the limited availability of material and logistical constraints requiring a holding phase. To address these issues, this study evaluated whether naloxone (NX), an opioid receptor antagonist with reported antioxidant properties, could improve vitrification outcomes and whether bovine oocytes could serve as a suitable preliminary and supportive model. Two experiments were conducted. In experiment 1, immature (bGV) and mature (bMII) bovine oocytes were vitrified without (VIT) or with NX (VI...
Journal of biomechanicsNovember 16, 2025
Volume 194 113078 doi: 10.1016/j.jbiomech.2025.113078
Opolz MD, Sipes GC, Moshage SG, McCoy AM, Kersh ME.Equine models are useful in biomechanics research due to their similarity in musculoskeletal tissue to humans, their athletic nature, and rapid skeletal development which permits ontogenetic studies. However, a continuing challenge in musculoskeletal models for large animal biomechanics is measuring the ground reaction force (GRF) during locomotion and therefore few reports of biomechanical measures such as joint torques. Here we evaluate two statistical approaches for estimating forelimb ground reaction forces in foals (n = 3). Longitudinal motion capture, GRF, and subject mass data during ...
Sprenzel CJ, Amann B, Deeg CA, Degroote RL.Glycosylation of surface proteins is a crucial post-translational modification that reflects the activation status of neutrophils, the predominant leukocyte subset in humans and horses. Neutrophils have emerged as active contributors to diseases mediated by the adaptive immune system, such as equine recurrent uveitis (ERU), a sight-threatening disease in horses and a unique model for studying the pathogenesis of autoimmune uveitis in humans. Since changes in surface glycosylation can impact neutrophil function, we were interested in the surface glycosylation landscape on neutrophils from healt...
Nissen SD, Bastrup JA, Haugaard SL, Marion-Knudsen R, Schneider M, Kjeldsen ST, Carstensen H, Hopster-Iversen C, Nattel S, Jepps TA, Buhl R.Horses and humans are among the few mammals susceptible to spontaneous atrial fibrillation (AF), both suffering from high recurrence rates after treatment. Treatment resistance is often attributed to progressive atrial remodeling, but current treatment options fail to effectively address this aspect. Here, we introduce a novel horse model of spontaneous AF to investigate the biological pathway changes in early stages of the disease. Through data-independent acquisition mass spectrometry on biopsies from the right and left atrium and left ventricular chamber of horses with early-stage persisten...
Simonin EM, Torsteinsdóttir S, Svansson V, Björnsdóttir S, Freer H, Tarsillo J, Wagner B.The origins of allergy are both genetic and environmental. We performed a full-sibling study to determine the role of early-in-life or delayed allergen introduction on hypersensitivity development in a cohort with history of an allergic phenotype and Culicoides hypersensitivity. IgE-mediated allergies naturally develop in many mammalian species, and we used a horse model of allergy called hypersensitivity. hypersensitivity is a seasonal, recurrent, IgE-mediated allergy caused by the salivary proteins of biting midges. Unassigned: The study included four cohorts that lived together in the s...
Koshy SA, Ajeebsanu MM, Karakka Kal AK, Subhahar MB, Karatt TK, Philip M.Effective pain management remains a persistent challenge, with opioids limited by tolerance, dependence, respiratory depression, and misuse. This has created demand for safer, nonaddictive alternatives. Suzetrigine (VX-548, Journavx) is a novel analgesic with promising efficacy, but its potential misuse in competitive racing requires investigation. Limited information is available on its metabolism and detection, emphasizing the need for metabolic characterization to aid antidoping strategies. Methods: In vitro metabolism of suzetrigine was evaluated using equine liver microsomes and homogeniz...
de Souza LWG, Oliveira EA, Vieira JW, Farias WAWA, de Souza Santos W, Neves LP, Perini AP.Portable X-ray equipments are commonly used in diagnostic radiology of equine patients. Despite its benefits, the exposure to ionizing radiation can pose a health risk to workers as physical restraint of patients is typically required. In this context, the aim of this study was to apply Monte Carlo simulation to investigate occupational exposure in the diagnosis of horses. The simulations were carried out by the Monte Carlo N-Particle 6.2 (MCNP6.2) code. The workers were represented by a FASH3 (female) and MASH3 (male) virtual anthropomorphic phantoms. To simulate the horse, a realistic virtua...
Harbowy RM, Nielsen BD, Colbath AC, Robison CI, Buskirk DD, Logan AA.Though circular exercise is commonly used in equestrian disciplines, it may be at the detriment of horses' musculoskeletal system. To investigate the effects of circular exercise on bone and joint health, 42 lambs were randomly assigned to a non-exercised control, straight-line, small circle, or large circle exercise regime at a slow (1.3 m/s) or fast (2.0 m/s) speed for 12 wk. Blood samples were taken biweekly. Animals were humanely euthanized upon study completion, and the fused third and fourth metacarpals were collected for biomechanical testing and bone density analysis. Fast groups were ...
Gaitan HM, Mudge MC, Litsky AS, Arruda AG, Gardner AK.To compare strength of left paramedian colopexies using various techniques in equine ex vivo models. Methods: Experimental study. Methods: Equine cadavers euthanized for nongastrointestinal pathology (36 specimens derived from 9 horses). Methods: Colopexies were performed after euthanasia. Suture pattern (horizontal mattress vs. cruciate) and incorporation of dorsal sheath of the rectus abdominis (partial-thickness) versus incorporation of dorsal and ventral sheath of the rectus abdominis (full-thickness) were evaluated. Single cycle load to failure, work to peak load, stiffness, and mode of f...
