Inflammatory mediators in cotton-top tamarins (CTT) with acute and chronic colitis

Spontaneous colitis in CTT's presents cytological characteristics similar to chronic ulcerative colitis in humans, e.g. inflammatory cell infiltrate and crypt abscesses. To better characterize CTT colitis as a potential model for human inflammatory bowel disease (IBD), inflammatory mediators identified in colonic tissue of human IBD patients and/or experimental colitis models were assayed. Inflammatory mediator changes in plasma and colon from tamarins with acute (n = 10) and chronic (n = 10) colitis (by mucosal biopsy) were assayed by RIAs. Similar inflammatory mediators were found in the CTT's with acute colitis. In the plasma, PAF and PGE2 levels were lower in acute colitis CTT's, no LTB4 was detected, and histamine levels were not different from chronic colitic animals. In the colon, myeloperoxidase and interleukin-1 beta were significantly higher in acute colitis, PGE2 and LTB4 were higher but not significantly, and PAF was not different from chronic CTT's. These data suggest that a combination of events are occurring in the pathogenesis of tamarin colitis that involves some of the same mediators that are found in the human disease and in other experimental models. The importance of these findings to human IBD remains for further investigation; however, the spontaneous primate model offers an exciting approximation of the disease development and merits further investigation for understanding the pathogenesis of human IBD as well as to aid in development of targeted therapeutics.