Introduction to the OU Animal Model

Oral ulcers (OU) are common inflammatory lesions of the oral mucosa, often triggered by a variety of factors, including mechanical trauma, infection, immune dysregulation, stress, and certain medications. In severe cases, they can impair eating, swallowing, and overall quality of life. Rat models of oral ulcers, which mimic the processes of mucosal injury and inflammatory repair, effectively recapitulate hallmark pathological features such as mucosal hyperemia, edema, ulcer formation, and tissue regeneration, enabling dynamic assessment of inflammatory responses, mucosal repair, and healing.

Aniphe BioLab's Advantages in Animal Model Platform Services

The Aniphe BioLab oral ulcer animal model platform boasts comprehensive advantages, including a high degree of standardization, a well‑established model system, and suitability for multi‑stage drug development.

	The model system has been refined. Covering multiple clinical scenarios, including acute, recurrent, and chronic oral ulcers, and closely aligned with clinical needs.
	Modeling standards are stable. Adopts standardized procedures, ensuring stable model formation and high batch-to-batch consistency.
	Comprehensive evaluation system Integrate ulcer area, pathological findings, and inflammatory markers to enable multidimensional efficacy assessment.
	Flexible dosing design Supports multiple administration routes and customizable intervention phases, catering to a wide range of R&D needs.
	The experimental process is controllable. Clear cycles, standardized data, and end-to-end traceability support drug efficacy screening and mechanistic studies.

Modeling cycle	1–2 weeks
Laboratory animals	Mice and rats of SPF grade
Positive drug	Commonly used glucocorticoids (such as dexamethasone), nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (such as indomethacin), and topical wound‑healing agents (such as recombinant human epidermal growth factor and Kangfuxin liquid) are employed to evaluate their anti‑inflammatory, analgesic, and mucosal‑repair‑promoting effects.
Application areas	It is primarily used for studying the pathogenesis of oral ulcers and for screening and evaluating anti-inflammatory, immunomodulatory, and mucosal‑repair‑promoting drugs, with broad applications in oral medicine, mucosal diseases of the digestive system, and the development of novel topical drug delivery systems.

Construction of an OU animal model

This model typically induces localized ulceration in the oral mucosa of animals through chemical cauterization. During the experiment, an appropriate animal species—such as rats or mice—is selected; under anesthesia or restraint, a filter paper or cotton swab soaked in a specific concentration of carbolic acid or glacial acetic acid is applied precisely to the buccal mucosa or a designated area of the tongue for a brief period, thereby causing local epithelial injury and the formation of well-defined ulcers. Subsequently, the time of ulcer onset, changes in ulcer size, and the course of the inflammatory response are monitored, and the model is used for subsequent pharmacological interventions and assessment of wound healing.

Model characteristics: The method is simple, and oral mucosal injury is readily visualized; however, the dietary habits of rats differ substantially from those of humans, and the model cannot fully replicate the complex etiologies of human oral mucosa. Such differences in etiology can easily lead to false‑positive or false‑negative results.