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Antibody production in rabbits administered Freund's complete adjuvant and carprofen concurrently

Lab Animal volume 45, pages 63–66 (2016)Cite this article

An Erratum to this article was published on 17 February 2016

This article has been updated

Abstract

Freund's complete adjuvant (FCA) is a commonly used immunopotentiator that can boost polyclonal antibody production in animal models such as rabbits, but FCA is also known to cause inflammation and pain. It is important to balance the welfare of animals with the goal of efficiently producing antibodies, but little is known about how common treatments for pain and inflammation, such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), affect the production of polyclonal antibodies. The purpose of this study was to measure polyclonal antibody production in rabbits that were administered FCA either with or without a concurrent treatment of a NSAID, carprofen. Rabbits were divided into two groups and were administered identical treatments of an antigen with adjuvant, and the treatment group also received carprofen injections at different stages of the study. Carprofen treatment did not significantly affect polyclonal antibody production, which suggests that carprofen and other NSAIDs can be used alongside FCA in rabbits to achieve desired levels of antibody production while minimizing pain and distress associated with the use of FCA.

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Figure 1: Timeline of treatments and sampling for rabbits that received no analgesia (control) or carprofen (NSAID) during the experiment.
Figure 2: Mean ± standard error of the mean (s.e.m.) binding antibody titers of rabbits during polyclonal antibody production with and without concurrent treatment with carprofen, as estimated using indirect ELISA.

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  • 27 January 2016

    In the version of this article published in print, the affiliation for the five authors was omitted. The error was corrected in the HTML and PDF versions of the article before online publication.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Ms. Sabrina Stronsky, Dr. Pamela Glass, MAJ Amy Carlson and Mr. William Discher for their assistance and support of this project. The opinions, interpretations, conclusions and recommendations are those of the authors and not necessarily endorsed by the US Army.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. US Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases, Fort Detrick, MD.,

    Joanna E. Fishback,  Sabrina M. Stronsky,  Catherine A. Green,  Krystal D. Bean &  Jeffrey W. Froude

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  1. Joanna E. Fishback
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Correspondence to Joanna E. Fishback.

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Fishback, J., Stronsky, S., Green, C. et al. Antibody production in rabbits administered Freund's complete adjuvant and carprofen concurrently. Lab Anim 45, 63–66 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/laban.937

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