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Updated: Aug 11, 2026
Handling of the Cotton Rat in Studies for the Pre-clinical Evaluation of Oncolytic Viruses
Published on: November 24, 2014
Enhanced pulmonary pathology in cotton rats upon challenge after immunization with inactivated parainfluenza virus 3
M G Ottolini1, D D Porter, V G Hemming
1Department of Pediatrics, Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences, F. Edward Hébert School of Medicine, Bethesda, Maryland 20814-4799, USA. mottolini@usuhs.mil
Abstract:
Vaccine-induced potentiation was studied in cotton rats immunized with formalin-inactivated human parainfluenza type 3, ultraviolet light-inactivated virus, or infection with live virus. Immunized animals and unimmunized controls were later challenged by intranasal inoculation of live virus and evaluated for pulmonary pathology 4 days later. Animals immunized with either of the inactivated vaccines developed marked peribronchiolitis, perivasculitis, and an alveolar cellular infiltration much more severe than seen in animals infected previously, or in unmanipulated but challenged animals. Disease enhancement after immunization with killed virus is thus a characteristic of a member of each of three genera of the family, Paramyxoviridae, and is not restricted to immunization with formalin-inactivated virus.
