title: Assessing Pseudomonas aeruginosa virulence and the host response using murine models of acute and chronic lung infection.
abstract: Murine models of acute and chronic lung infection have been used in studying Pseudomonas aeruginosa for assessing in vivo behavior and for monitoring of the host response. These models provide an important resource for studies of the initiation and maintenance of bacterial infection, identify bacterial genes essential for in vivo maintenance and for the development and testing of new therapies. The rat has been used extensively as a model of chronic lung infection, whereas the mouse has been a model of acute and chronic infection. Intratracheal administration of planktonic bacterial cells in the mouse provides a model of acute pneumonia. Bacteria enmeshed in agar beads can be used in the rat and mouse to reproduce the lung pathology of cystic fibrosis patients with advanced chronic pulmonary disease. Here, we describe the methods to assess virulence of P. aeruginosa using prototype and clinical strains in the Sprague-Dawley rat and the C57BL/6NCrlBR mouse by monitoring several measurable read-outs including weight loss, mortality, in vivo growth curves, the competitive index of infectivity, and the inflammatory response.
authors.affiliation: Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes (IBIS), Université Laval, 1030 av. de la médecine, Québec, QC, Canada, G1V 0A6.
authors.forename: Irena
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Kukavica-Ibrulj
authors.forename: Marcella
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Facchini
authors.forename: Cristina
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Cigana
authors.forename: Roger C
authors.initials: RC
authors.lastname: Levesque
authors.forename: Alessandra
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Bragonzi
mesh_terms: D000208:Acute Disease; D000362:Agar; D000818:Animals; D001681:Biological Assay / Q000379:methods*; D002908:Chronic Disease; D015169:Colony Count, Microbial; D004195:Disease Models, Animal; D054884:Host-Pathogen Interactions; D007249:Inflammation / Q000473:pathology; D007700:Kinetics; D008168:Lung / Q000382:microbiology / Q000473:pathology; D008297:Male; D008810:Mice, Inbred C57BL; D011552:Pseudomonas Infections / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000473:pathology; D011550:Pseudomonas aeruginosa / Q000254:growth & development / Q000472:pathogenicity*; D017207:Rats, Sprague-Dawley; D012141:Respiratory Tract Infections / Q000382:microbiology* / Q000473:pathology; D016019:Survival Analysis; D014774:Virulence
chemical_list: D000362:Agar