Rabbit models of pneumonia, peritoneal sepsis, and lung injury.

To study the mechanisms that link sepsis with ARDS, many animal models have been developed. In this chapter, a rabbit model of sepsis secondary to an intrapulmonary or intraabdominal infection has been described. One advantage of the rabbit model of sepsis is that this species produces the C-X-C chemokine, IL-8. In contrast, rodents, which are often used in studies of sepsis and ARDS, lack this important chemokine. A second advantage is the rabbit's size. This species is large enough so that the measurement of physiological parameters (e.g., mean arterial pressure, heart rate, etc.) is not difficult, but they are not so large that they require large quantities of precious reagents (e.g., recombinant proteins and MAbs). A disadvantage of the rabbit model is that there are fewer reagents (e.g., recombinant cytokines and MAbs) available for the study of inflammation in rabbits when compared to mice.