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Development and validation of a rabbit model of Pseudomonas aeruginosa non-ventilated pneumonia for preclinical drug development

E. Gras, T. Vu, N. T. Nguyen, Vuvi G Tran, Ya-fei Mao, N. D. Tran, N. Mai, Oliver X. Dong et al.

Frontiers in Cellular and Infection Microbiology, 2023

7 citations

Abstract

Background New drugs targeting antimicrobial resistant pathogens, including Pseudomonas aeruginosa, have been challenging to evaluate in clinical trials, particularly for the non-ventilated hospital-acquired pneumonia and ventilator-associated pneumonia indications. Development of new antibacterial drugs is facilitated by preclinical animal models that could predict clinical efficacy in patients with these infections. Methods We report here an FDA-funded study to develop a rabbit model of non-ventilated pneumonia with Pseudomonas aeruginosa by determining the extent to which the natural history of animal disease reproduced human pathophysiology and conducting validation studies to evaluate whether humanized dosing regimens of two antibiotics, meropenem and tobramycin, can halt or reverse disease progression. Results In a rabbit model of non-ventilated pneumonia, endobronchial challenge with live P. aeruginosa strain 6206, but not with UV-killed Pa6206, caused acute respiratory distress syndrome, as evidenced by acute lung inflammation, pulmonary edema, hemorrhage, severe hypoxemia, hyperlactatemia, neutropenia, thrombocytopenia, and hypoglycemia, which preceded respiratory failure and death. Pa6206 increased >100-fold in the lungs and then disseminated from there to infect distal organs, including spleen and kidneys. At 5 h post-infection, 67% of Pa6206-challenged rabbits had PaO2 MIC, resulting in 75% microbiological clearance rate of Pa6206 from the lungs. For tobramycin…

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