Inducible Il-6 Mice As A Model To Study Age-Related Frailty

Abstract

Frailty is affecting an increasingly larger amount of our aging population. Frailty is a geriatric syndrome characterized by declining weight, muscle mass and strength and cognitive decline. The mechanism of frailty is not fully understood because there are many molecular markers implicated in frailty, clouding the exact pathophysiology of this condition. This project focuses on one of these molecular markers, interleukin-6 or IL-6, and its causality in the progression of frailty. To gain more mechanistic insight we created a mouse model with inducible Il-6 expression. Mice were genetically modified to express IL-6 in the presence of a doxycycline diet (“inducible” IL-6 mouse). This allowed the modulation of IL-6 and hence a model to study frailty. IL-6 induction was confirmed with IL-6 Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent assay (ELISA) and subsequent increase in frailty symptoms was observed, demonstrating that this model may be useful in dissecting mechanisms of frailty.