title: Syrian Hamsters as a Small Animal Model for Emerging Infectious Diseases: Advances in Immunologic Methods.
abstract: The use of small animal models for the study of infectious disease is critical for understanding disease progression and for developing prophylactic and therapeutic treatment options. For many diseases, Syrian golden hamsters have emerged as an ideal animal model due to their low cost, small size, ease of handling, and ability to accurately reflect disease progression in humans. Despite the increasing use and popularity of hamsters, there remains a lack of available reagents for studying hamster immune responses. Without suitable reagents for assessing immune responses, researchers are left to examine clinical signs and disease pathology. This becomes an issue for the development of vaccine and treatment options where characterizing the type of immune response generated is critical for understanding protection from disease. Despite the relative lack of reagents for use in hamsters, significant advances have been made recently with several hamster specific immunologic methods being developed. Here we discuss the progress of this development, with focus on classical methods used as well as more recent molecular methods. We outline what methods are currently available for use in hamsters and what is readily used as well as what limitations still exist and future perspectives of reagent and assay development for hamsters. This will provide valuable information to researchers who are deciding whether to use hamsters as an animal model.
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.
authors.forename: Bryce M
authors.initials: BM
authors.lastname: Warner
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada. david.safronetz@phac-aspc.gc.ca.|National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, Canada. david.safronetz@phac-aspc.gc.ca.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Safronetz
authors.affiliation: Department of Medical Microbiology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.|National Microbiology Laboratory, Public Health Agency of Canada, Winnipeg, Canada.|Department of Immunology, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Canada.|Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, Philadelphia, PA, USA.|Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Faculty of Medicine, Laval University, Quebec, Canada.
authors.forename: Gary P
authors.initials: GP
authors.lastname: Kobinger
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D021821:Communicable Diseases, Emerging / Q000276:immunology*; D006224:Cricetinae; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D008647:Mesocricetus; D014777:Virus Diseases / Q000473:pathology / Q000821:virology*
keywords: Animal models; Golden hamster; Immunological tools; Mesocricetus auratus; Molecular methods; Syrian golden hamster; Syrian hamster