He Yongqun, Rush Howard G, Liepman Rachel S, Xiang Zuoshuang, Colby Lesley A
Unit for Laboratory Animal Medicine, University of Michigan Medical School, Ann Arbor, USA.
Comp Med. 2007 Feb;57(1):18-32.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Category A infectious agents include Bacillus anthracis (anthrax), Clostridium botulinum toxin (botulism), Yersinia pestis (plague), variola major virus (smallpox), Francisella tularensis (tularemia), and the filoviruses and arenaviruses that induce viral hemorrhagic fevers. These agents are regarded as having the greatest potential for adverse impact on public health and therefore are a focus of renewed attention in infectious disease research. Frequently rodent models are used to study the pathobiology of these agents. Although much is known regarding naturally occurring infections in humans, less is documented on the sources of exposures and potential risks of infection to researchers and animal care personnel after the administration of these hazardous substances to laboratory animals. Failure to appropriately manage the animals can result both in the creation of workplace hazards if human exposures occur and in disruption of the research if unintended animal exposures occur. Here we review representative Category A agents, with a focus on comparing the biologic effects in naturally infected humans and rodent models and on considerations specific to the management of infected rodent subjects. The information reviewed for each agent has been curated manually and stored in a unique Internet-based database system called HazARD (Hazards in Animal Research Database, http://helab.bioinformatics.med.umich.edu/hazard/) that is designed to assist researchers, administrators, safety officials, Institutional Biosafety Committees, and veterinary personnel seeking information on the management of risks associated with animal studies involving hazardous substances.
美国疾病控制与预防中心的A类感染因子包括炭疽芽孢杆菌（炭疽）、肉毒梭菌毒素（肉毒中毒）、鼠疫耶尔森菌（鼠疫）、天花病毒（天花）、土拉弗朗西斯菌（兔热病），以及引发病毒性出血热的丝状病毒和沙粒病毒。这些因子被认为对公众健康具有最大的潜在不利影响，因此是传染病研究中重新受到关注的焦点。啮齿动物模型经常被用于研究这些因子的病理生物学。尽管对于人类自然发生的感染已经了解很多，但在将这些有害物质给予实验动物后，关于研究人员和动物护理人员的暴露源及潜在感染风险的记录却较少。如果发生人员暴露，未能妥善管理动物既会造成工作场所危害，若意外发生动物暴露则会干扰研究。在此，我们综述具有代表性的A类因子，重点比较自然感染人类和啮齿动物模型中的生物学效应，以及感染啮齿动物对象管理方面的具体考量因素。针对每种因子所综述的信息均经过人工整理，并存储在一个名为HazARD（动物研究数据库中的危害，网址：http://helab.bioinformatics.med.umich.edu/hazard/）的独特的基于互联网的数据库系统中，该系统旨在帮助研究人员、管理人员、安全官员、机构生物安全委员会以及兽医人员获取有关涉及有害物质的动物研究风险管控信息。
