Immunological evaluation of <i>Aeromonas</i> infection in albino rats

Abstract

Aeromonas hydrophila is the most common bacterial species causing an acute self limiting diarrheal illness in mammals. Albino rats were categorized into treated and control groups. Treated groups were injected daily intraperitoneally with 0.2ml of bacterial suspension containing 6x106 cells/ml of 0.9% NaCl, while the control groups were injected intraperitoneally with 0.2ml of 0.9% NaCl. Both control and treated groups were sacrificed after 3, 6, 9, 12 and 15 days post-injection. The immunological parameters covering innate, cellular and humoral immune responses were estimated. Phagocytic activity showed highly significant differences in all treated animals (p<0.01) either in vivo or in vitro assays. In addition, cell-mediated immune response exhibited highly significant changes in all treated rats in a time-dependent manner. However, humoral immune response showed significant changes in all treated animals, confirming that the bacterial infection affected on all immunological pathways. This study aimed to clarify the imunological changes induced by A. hydrophila infection.


KEY WORDS: Aeromonas, immunity, mammals


Egyptian Journal of Biology Vol.3(2) 2001: 96-101