Mitigation of experimental inflammatory bowel disease in guinea pigs by selective elimination of the aerobic gram-negative intestinal microflora
article
Experimentally induced ulcerative disease of the large intestine in guinea pigs was significantly mitigated by selective elimination of the aerobic gram-negative intestinal microflora. Lesions were induced with 2 or 5% degraded carrageenan administered in the drinking water for 30 to 44 days. Craterous cecal or colonic ulcers, crypt abscesses, mucosal distortion, mesenteric lymphadenopathy, marked cecal or colonic lymphoid hyperplasia, and other lesions were seen in conventional guinea pigs treated with degraded carrageenan. Other guinea pigs that were treated with 2% degraded carrageenan, but freed of Enterobacteriaceae species by the administration of trimethoprim with sulfamethoxazole, and subsequently maintained in isolators, exhibited virtually no lesions. Enterobacteriaceae-free animals that were treated with 5% degraded carrageenan had significantly fewer lesions than were observed in the conventional degraded carrageenan-treated animals. Biotyping of bacterial isolates indicated that the family of Enterobacteriaceae species generally, and not a single biotype, was associated with the lesions. The bacteria presumably stimulated an immunological response after penetration of the intestinal mucosal barrier; thus, inflammatory bowel disease in guinea pigs, induced with degraded carrageenan, may provide a useful model for investigating immunological aspects of human inflammatory bowel disease.
TNO Identifier
354332
Source
Gastroenterology, 67, pp. 460-472.
Pages
460-472
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