Experimental Absidia corymbifera infection in rabbits: Clinicopathological studies

Abstract

Absidiosis was produced experimentally in rabbits by intravenous inoculation of 1.4 x 10(5) spores of Absidia corymbifera. Infected rabbits exhibited a rise in body temperature, anorexia, dullness, listlessness, diarrhoea, occasional blindness, convulsions and death in some cases. Mortality occurred mainly between 6 to 9 days post infection (DPI) and overall mortality was 50 per cent during the three week observation period. No significant difference was observed in erythrocytic indices viz., Hb, PCV, TEC in control and infected rabbits. However, erythrocyte sedimentation rate was considerably increased in the infected rabbits. A state of leucocytosis was observed in the infected rabbits, which was due to increase in the relative percentage of neutrophils and decrease in lymphocytes. There was a significant increase in blood urea nitrogen concentrations of infected rabbits from 3 to 14 DPI as compared to controls, but serum creatinine values were not significantly altered at any stage of infection. The cause of death was attributed to kidney failure and uraemia in infected rabbits. The rabbit was found to be a suitable model for the study of absidiosis.

Evaluation of Haematological, Biochemical and Histopathological Parameters of Transgenic Rabbits

“…Our results in haematology are comparable with our previous results investigated from transgenic rabbits of F2 generation (Suvegova et al, 2004) and from non-transgenic New Zealand White (11.9 ± 0.17, Yousef et al, 2003). It is lower than the data on non-transgenic New Zealand White rabbit reported earlier (Tavares et al, 2004) and higher than the parameters of the same non-transgenic breed published by Sondhi et al (1999). In case of HCT values, our determined values are similar to those reported previously (Suvegova et al, 2004) and are comparable with the results of Kozma et al (1974) respectively.…”

Mucormycoses caused byLichtheimiaspecies

“…A variety of animal models have been used to investigate the virulence and pathogenicity of Lichtheimia species. Like in mice, intravenous infection leads to the development of disease and mortality in healthy rabbits and bank voles with kidney and brain being the main target organs . Intranasal infection of bank voles did only rarely lead to mortality but fungi disseminated and could be isolated from lung, liver, brain and kidney at high infection doses .…”

“…Like in mice, intravenous infection leads to the development of disease and mortality in healthy rabbits and bank voles with kidney and brain being the main target organs. 77,78 Intranasal infection of bank voles did only rarely lead to mortality but fungi disseminated and could be isolated from lung, liver, brain and kidney at high infection doses. 78 In contrast, intratracheal infection of Asian water buffalo calves led to restricted, self-limiting lung infection without fatalities and dissemination.…”