Murine Acute Asthma Model Development

Male BALB/c mice (sexually mature) were obtained from the Hubei Provincial Center for Disease Control and Prevention (Wuhan, China). All animal experiments were designed and conducted in a specific pathogen-free (SPF)-grade laboratory as previously described with minor revision (Shi et al., 2020 (link); Li et al., 2023 (link); Peng et al., 2023 (link)). First, we established acute asthmatic mouse models as previously described (Li et al., 2023 (link); Peng et al., 2023 (link)). 6-week-old mice were randomly divided into the following four groups: (1) control group, (2) asthma group, (3) vandetanib group, and 4) dexamethasone group. The asthma group, dexamethasone group and vandetanib group were exposed to OVA by injections of 3 mg/mL OVA (10 mL/kg) intraperitoneally (IP) on Days 0, 7, and 14. From Day 15, the mice were consequentially intranasal instilled with 3 mg/mL OVA (1 mL/kg, once per day). Moreover, the dexamethasone group and vandetanib group were gavaged daily with dexamethasone (1 mg/kg and 10 mg/kg, respectively) or vandetanib (12.5 mg/kg, 25 mg/kg, and 50 mg/kg). The control group was treated in parallel with PBS. Nine days after sensitization, the trachea and lungs were isolated from the euthanized mice for further experiments.