AJCP / EDITORIAL Searching for a Valid Animal Model of Hemolytic Uremic Syndrome

Shiga toxin–producing Escherichia coli (STEC) is the most common cause of diarrhea-positive hemolytic uremic syndrome (HUS). Producing considerable morbidity and mortality, diarrhea-positive HUS is characterized by hemor-rhagic colitis, microangiopathic hemolytic anemia (MHA), thrombocytopenia, and acute renal failure. Although the gastrointestinal tract and the kidney are the organs most commonly affected, central nervous system, skeletal, pancre-atic, and myocardial involvement also can occur. Despite the significant progress made during the past few years in understanding the pathogenesis of STEC-asso-ciated HUS, the precise sequence of events by which infec-tion causes disease is still unclear. Efforts to address this question in vivo have been hampered greatly by the lack of animal models that fully recapitulate the entire spectrum o