Mouse Models of Liver Fibrosis

Male wildtype, IL-37tg mice underwent ligation of the common bile duct under general anesthesia at the age of 6–8 weeks according to standard procedures (32). Control mice underwent sham operations in which the common bile duct was exposed but not ligated. Mice were either sacrificed 3 or 14 days after bile-duct ligation. In a separate experiment C57BL/6 mice were injected with rhIL-37 (1 or 5 μg) or vehicle 1 h before bile duct ligation and once again on day 2.

CCl₄ (0.6 ml/kg in oil) or oil was administered twice weekly via intra-peritoneal injection into 6–8 weeks old female C57BL/6 or IL-37tg mice for 6 weeks as described (33).

We recently described the protective role of IL-37 against colon inflammation and carcinogenesis during chronic colitis in IL-10 KO mice (22). Livers of homozygous IL-10KO and IL-10KO/IL-37tg mice from this study were analyzed by histology for fibrosis and by qPCR for gene expression after a 6 months course of chronic colitis.