[Acute phase proteins as diagnostic aid in veterinary medicine]

The acute phase response is the general nonspecific defence mechanism induced by noxious stimuli, which precedes the specific defence mechanism of the immune response. In addition to other changing physiological parameters, the concentration of a number of proteins changes significantly during the acute phase response. These acute phase proteins were studied in detail in human subjects. However, the knowledge of acute phase proteins in domestic animals, is limited. This knowledge is reviewed in the present paper. Attention is directed to C-reactive protein (CRP), serum amyloid-A (SAA) and haptoglobin (Hp). These three proteins promise to be the most useful ones in the routine diagnosis of diseases of animals, which is discussed at the end of the paper.