Accuracy of complement activation product levels to detect infected pleural effusion in rats

Abstract

In the present rat model, complement activation fragments C3a and C5a accurately detected infected pleural effusion. Pediatr Pulmonol. 2017;52:757-762. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Animal Models of Pneumococcal pneumonia

“…Rats models are also generally used to measure the inoculum size. The inoculum size needed to cause pneumococcal infections after IT inoculation ranged from 5.7 to 6.2 log10 CFU/mL [82,83]. Supernatants obtained from bronchoalveolar lavage are usually used to measure ante e post-mortem inflammatory levels of studied biomarkers and to detect their concentration and activation in the lungs during pneumococcal pneumonia [82,84].…”

“…Rat models of experimental pneumonia are also used to assess the virulence of different pneumococcal serotypes, especially in children [79]. Moreover, penicillin-resistant pneumococcal strains and other resistant phenotypes have been established in the existing rat models in order to evaluate the efficacy of new antibiotics [78,83].…”

“…In our opinion, the major and more important application of the rat model is the assessment of the efficacy, pharmacodynamic/pharmacokinteic of new antibiotics for susceptible or pneumococcal resistant strains (e.g., penicillin-resistant pneumococcal strains) [72,76,83,85,89,90].…”

“…Finally, rat models are, in our opinion, also suitable to evaluate the pathogenesis of pneumococcal infections complications. For example, a rat model was used to detect infected pleural effusion by dosing complement activation product levels in pleural fluid of animals [83].…”