White M R, Chapman W L, Hanson W L
Department of Pathology, College of Veterinary Medicine, University of Georgia, Athens 30602.
Lab Anim Sci. 1989 Jan;39(1):47-50.
Visceral leishmaniasis is a severe, chronic protozoal disease of humans and animals. Although chemotherapeutic agents are available for the treatment of this disease, problems such as drug toxicity, drug ineffectiveness and drug resistance of the parasite are responsible for treatment failures. To determine whether a drug is a potential antileishmanial agent, screening tests are performed using in vitro and in vivo models. Subsequently, a study using an appropriate animal model is performed to clearly determine the efficacy of a drug against Leishmania. Due to current public concerns regarding the use of companion animals in addition to the high costs of obtaining and maintaining these animals for research use, conventional animal models used in these chemotherapy studies, notably the dog and monkey, are becoming less acceptable. Therefore, new, less expensive and more accessible animal models are needed for the study of antileishmanial compounds. In this study, the armadillo, ferret and opossum were evaluated as possible new animal models for visceral leishmaniasis. The marked body weight loss, hepatomegaly, splenomegaly, large amastigote densities and the microscopic lesions observed in the infected opossums indicated that the opossum was more susceptible to visceral leishmaniasis than the armadillo or ferret.
内脏利什曼病是一种严重的人类和动物慢性原生动物疾病。尽管有化学治疗药物可用于治疗这种疾病，但诸如药物毒性、药物无效以及寄生虫耐药性等问题导致治疗失败。为了确定一种药物是否为潜在的抗利什曼原虫药物，需使用体外和体内模型进行筛选试验。随后，进行一项使用合适动物模型的研究，以明确确定一种药物对利什曼原虫的疗效。由于当前公众对使用伴侣动物存在担忧，以及获取和饲养这些动物用于研究的成本高昂，这些化疗研究中使用的传统动物模型，尤其是狗和猴子，越来越不被接受。因此，研究抗利什曼原虫化合物需要新的、成本更低且更易获得的动物模型。在本研究中，犰狳、雪貂和负鼠被评估为内脏利什曼病可能的新动物模型。在受感染的负鼠中观察到的显著体重减轻、肝肿大、脾肿大、大量无鞭毛体密度以及微观病变表明，负鼠比犰狳或雪貂更容易感染内脏利什曼病。
