Pigs are used as a model of human obesity, both for metabolic characterization and for evaluation of pharmacological interventions. Over a period of 7 years, acute death or clinical signs requiring immediate euthanasia were observed in 12 obese Göttingen minipigs (GMs) included in different pharmacological studies. The GM were fed ad libitum on normal chow-diet and the unscheduled deaths occurred in animals treated with drug candidates as well as in untreated animals. The most prominent clinical signs requiring euthanasia included varying degrees of respiratory distress; and on histopathological examination, thickening of the alveolar septa due to vacuolation was observed throughout the lung in 10 of the 12 animals. Furthermore, vacuolation in glomeruli of the kidney was detected in 9 of the 10 animals. Oil red O staining of cryosections demonstrated that the vacuoles both in lung and kidney contained lipid, and immunohistochemistry with anti-von Willebrand factor and transmission electron microscopy revealed that the lipid was localized in the lumen of blood vessels establishing the occurrence of fatal pulmonary lipid embolism. Additionally, lipogranulomatous inflammation in the abdominal adipose tissue was observed in all the GMs with lipid emboli.
Keywords: acute death; animal model; kidney; lipid embolism; lipogranulomatous inflammation; lung; minipig; respiratory distress; steatitis.