TITLE:
House Dust Mite Allergy Models—Reliability for Research of Airway Defensive Mechanisms
AUTHORS:
Tomas Buday, Jana Plevkova
KEYWORDS:
House Dust Mite, Allergy, Asthma, Animal Model, Ovalbumin, Cough
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Molecular and Integrative Physiology,
Vol.4 No.3,
August
13,
2014
ABSTRACT: Extensive research of respiratory physiology and diseases of the airways
and lungs provides better understanding of mechanisms of diseases and it is a source
of new data with potential clinical application. The majority of the data in the
field of airway defensive reflexes were obtained from guinea pig model, as the most
convenient one. Neurophysiology and neuropharma-cology of the cough reflex—which
is exclusively mediated by the vagus nerve, share close similarities between guinea
pigs and humans. The models used to study pathological processes and their influence
on airway-defensive reflexes use sensitization with ovalbumin—the protein from chicken
egg, which does not mimic allergies within human respiratory system. House dust
mites (HDM) (Dermatophagoides pteronyssius and Dermatophagoides farinae) represent
frequent human aeroallergens, however the HDM models are used considerably less
than ovalbumin models. The primary objective of this review is to focus on already
validated models of HDM-induced airway diseases to see, whether some of them are
suitable to study mechanisms of peripheral cough plasticity in a condition of HDM-induced
pathological processes. The main purpose of future use and validation of HDM model
is to produce higher ability to translate the results obtained in animal models
to human cough research.