The hairless guinea pig as an experimental animal for photodermatology.

Photobiologic reactions to various modalities of ultraviolet light (UVL) irradiation were evaluated in the recently identified hairless guinea pig, Crl: IAF(HA)BR, a mutant from the Hartley strain. The cutaneous changes were observed macro- and microscopically. The animal developed similar but somewhat stronger reactions than the Hartley guinea pig to the UVB irradiation and topical and systemic PUVA treatments. The density of the epidermal Langerhans cell of the hairless guinea pig was significantly higher than that of the hairy strain. The photoallergic contact sensitization was easily induced by tetrachlorosalicylanilide. These results indicate that the hairless guinea pig can be used as an animal model for photobiologic and photoimmunologic investigations.