I have tried to induce an allergic response in female Balb/c mice. Mice were immunized i.p. with OVA + alum 3 times (days 0, 10, and 20), and after the 3rd immunization, mice started to die. Does anyone have similar experience? Could this due to systemic anaphylaxis?
I think you should mention the doses of adjuvant and OVA, because high dose alum might have been accumulated in kidneys of mice or too much OVA caused the deads. Regards
LPS-free OVA in PBS (50 μg/100 μl) mixed with equal volume of Imject® Alum (Thermo) adjuvant was injected i.p. into mice. The mice had died for a couple of days before I saw the dead body, so I did not perform necropsy on the mice.
Intraperitoneal immunization of Alum shows severe transient systemic adverse events in mice even after single immunization. Alum-based vaccines and allergen immunotherapies can cause local inflammation such as local pain or erythema, but also long-persisting granuloma, and infrequently abscesses, cysts, and ulcers.
Usually for vaccine studies booster dose is given after two to three weeks of first immunization, but in your case time gap is too less to acclimatize the mice. I guess the death of mice is because of the stress and too much of inflammatory response. If I am not wrong the material was injected on the same site, which somehow cause more or unbearable pain which might also be the reason.
My suggestion is to reduce the dose and increase the time interval.
This article might be useful in your study, they have clearly indicated the side effects of Alum after Intraperitoneal injection:
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0928098718300563#f0015
Hope this is helpful