Validation of the guinea-pig as an appropriate model for human labour: HDAC inhibitors as tocolytics for preterm labour.

早产（PTL）仍然是21世纪世纪妊娠的主要并发症，对此尚无广泛有效的治疗临床策略。虽然大多数婴儿在足月妊娠结束时分娩，但英国每年有近6万名婴儿因母亲过早分娩而早产。早产儿可能面临残疾和终身健康不良的高风险。然而，尽管进行了深入的研究，我们仍然无法预防PTL。其中一个基本问题是我们对子宫肌肉的协调收缩以及如何用药物抑制它们的理解不足。这种失败也与缺乏反映人类劳动的合适动物模型有关，我们可以在其中开发用于PTL的新药物疗法。这项合作项目赠款汇集了国际专家，共同目标是解决这些问题。特别是，我们将测试我们的建议，怀孕豚鼠作为一个有用的模型子宫收缩和人类劳动目前青睐的啮齿动物模型。我们将通过检查抑制一类称为HDAC的分子的新药是否真的可以降低该豚鼠模型中PTL的发生率或严重程度来实现这一点。如果是这样，它们将为PTL的人类临床治疗提供新的可能性。

Preterm labour (PTL) continues to be a major complication of pregnancy in the 21st Century for which there is no broadly effective therapeutic clinical strategy. Whilst most infants are delivered at the end of a full-term pregnancy, nearly 60,000 per year in the UK are born early because the mother goes into labour too soon. Prematurely born children may face a high risk of disability and life-long ill health. However, despite intensive research we remain unable to prevent PTL. One of the fundamental problems is our poor understanding of the co-ordinated contractions in the muscles of the uterus which lead to delivery and how to inhibit them with drugs. This failure is also linked to a lack of suitable animal models reflective of human labour in which we can develop new drug therapies for PTL. This Collaborative Project Grant brings together international experts with the common goal of addressing these issues. In particular, we will test our suggestion that the pregnant guinea pig serves as a useful model uterine contraction and human labour over that of currently favoured rodent models. We will do this by examining if new drugs that inhibit a class of molecules known as HDACs can actually reduce the incidence or severity of PTL in this guinea pig model. If so, they will offer new possibilities for the clinical treatment in humans of PTL.