The behaviour of ceruloplasmin as an acute phase protein in obese and infected rabbits

Abstract

Acute phase proteins (APP) are serum proteins which increase in concentration during the acute phase reaction (APR) to inflammation or infection. The response occurs in all animals, but in different species the response of individual proteins can be significantly different. Kushner et al. 2006, divided positive APP in three groups: those with an increase of about 50%: ceruloplasmin and C3; those with an increase of 2 to 3 times: haptoglobin, fibrinogen and α-globulins with antiprotease activity; and those proteins with a rapid increase up to 1000-fold: C-reactive protein and serum amyloidal (SAA). Ceruloplasmin (Cp) is an APP from the α₂- globulin fraction. It is a small APP, of approximately 160 kDa, with a concentration in plasma of approximately 30 mg/dl. So far in the available literature there is no information concerning the behavior of this protein in rabbits after infection. All S. aureus infections in individual rabbits have a similar appearance, with lesions of pododermatitis, subcutaneous abscesses and mastitis. In rabbit flocks, two types of S. aureus infections can be distinguished. In the first type with a low virulent strain, the infection remains limited to a small number of animals and is of minor economic importance. In the second type with a high virulent S.aureus, infection results in epidemic spread of disease in the rabbitry. Rabbitries where highly virulent strains circulate, suffer substantial financial loss. The objective of this work is to compare the extent of ceruloplasmin elevation in infected obese rabbits with rabbits which were only infected.