Development of pollen-induced allergic rhinitis with early and late phase nasal blockage in guinea pigs

Objective and Design: Development of nasal blockage and sneezing during repeated inhalation challenges with Japanese cedar pollens was evaluated in guinea pigs. Subjects: Male Hartley guinea pigs. Treatment: Guinea pigs were sensitized by intranasal instillation of cedar pollen extracts + Al(OH)(3) 2 times a day for 7 days. The animal was then forced to inhale the pollens for challenge, which was restrictively trapped in the upper airways, once a week. Methods: Change of specific airway resistance (sRaw), sneezing frequency, and titers of anaphylactic antibodies in the serum were measured after each of the 30 challenges. Results: At the first challenge, no obvious increase in sRaw was observed. However, the second and third challenges to the animals caused modest biphasic elevations of sRaw, with peaks at the first and the fourth to sixth hour. At the fourth to tenth challenges, marked elevations of sRaw were observed. However, with repetition of the inhalation challenge, the early and the late responses became almost indistinguishable because of partial overlapping as the responses expanded. All guinea pigs sneezed immediately after each pollen inhalation challenge. Apparent increases of both circulating gamma 1 and IgE antibodies were seen after the seventh challenge. Conclusions: These results indicate that the experimental allergic rhinitis established in the present study can be a valuable model for analyzing the pathogenesis of the disease and developing new therapeutic drugs.