Mycobacterium adjuvant arthritis

A more recent model of inflammation is the killed Mycobacterium adjuvant arthritis test. Besides an acute inflammatory phase, it produces a secondary phase characterized by induction of an inflammatory lesion at sites distant from the initial lesion and also by the development of biochemical alterations measured by changes in blood fibrinogen, mucopolysaccharides and a-globulin. These distant changes may be mediated by the kinin systems, such as bradykinin. This new model is affected by most drugs active in the human arthritis and promises better predictive value than earlier models, which measured primarily the acute phases. It permits measuring in man and animals such biochemical parameters as inflammation units related to the a-globulins. Such measurements may... 

Grandia, A.A., Devisser, H., Vanembden, J.D.A., Vanderzee, R., Vanderberg, W.B., Hazenberg, M.P. (1991). Natural antibodies to 65 kD mycobacterial heat shock protein in rats do not correlate with susceptibility for mycobacterium-tuberculosis induced adjuvant arthritis. Immunobiology 182, 127-134. 

The search for new and effective treatment modalities requires the availability of adequate screening tests. Although no model adequately reflects the events that occur in human arthritic conditions, several in vivo and in vitro assays are used. The most common in vivo animal assays measure the ability of anti-inflammatory drugs to inhibit edema induced in the rat paw by carrageenan (a mucopolysaccharide derived from a sea moss of the Chondrus species), to inhibit adjuvant arthritis in rats induced by Mycobacterium butyricum or M. tuberculosis, to inhibit granuloma formation usually induced by the implantation of a cotton pellet beneath the abdominal skin of rats, or to inhibit erythema of guinea pig skin as a result of exposure to ultraviolet radiation. In vitro techniques include the ability of NSAIDs to stabilize erythrocyte membranes or, more commonly, to inhibit the biosynthesis of prostaglandins, particularly in cultured human synoviocytes and chondrocytes, and monocyte culture fluid stimulated bovine synoviocytes and chondrocytes. 

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