Animal models of bronchial asthma

Due to the continuous increase in prevalence and morbidity in asthma, there is an urgent need to improve present therapy by drugs with new modes of actions. In contrast to many human diseases, allergic asthma does not occur in the animal world. Therefore, we have to mimic some characteristic feature of asthma in animals. For this reason, a wide variety of animal models have been developed and are employed in the search for new chemical entities for asthma therapy. In the present paper, the experimental models of the most characteristic asthma symptoms are critically reviewed.