A new murine model of persistent lung eosinophilic inflammation.

We summarize here the main characteristics of a novel model of pulmonary hypersensitivity. Mice were immunized with a subcutaneous implant of a fragment of heat solidified chicken egg white and 14 days later challenged with ovalbumin given either by aerosol or by intratracheal instillation. This procedure induces a persistent eosinophilic lung inflammation, a marked bone marrow eosinophilia, and Th2-type isotypic profile with histopathological findings that resemble human asthma. Further, this model is simple to perform, reproducible in different strains of mice, does not require adjuvants nor multiple boosters. Based on these characteristics we propose it as a suitable murine model of allergic eosinophilic lung inflammation.