New publication: Intradermal lipopolysaccharide challenge as an acute in vivo inflammatory model in healthy volunteers.

Inflammation is a response to damaged tissue or pathogens resulting in the release of inflammatory mediators and cellular activation. Although inflammation is a physiological process, an excessive or poorly regulated inflammatory response can be harmful to the host, which is the case in inflammatory disorders. To study the inflammatory process in humans and the effect of potential anti-inflammatory drugs, several challenge models have been developed, of which systemic lipopolysaccharide (LPS) administration has been used for decades.

Intravenous LPS challenge does has several limitations:
(i) it only supports the evaluation of systemic anti-inflammatory investigational compounds;
(ii) it leads to a prolonged state of immunological hypo-responsiveness to LPS due to systemic innate memory, hampering the possibility of a repeated challenge in the same individual and
(iii) it results in a systemic inflammatory response in which it is difficult or impossible to assess the contribution of stromal tissues.