Bioluminescence imaging to track bacterial dissemination of Yersinia pestis using different routes of infection in mice

BMC Microbiology

Virginia L Miller¹  Gregory D Sempowski²  Richard Frothingham⁴  Eric H Weening¹  Rodrigo J Gonzalez³ 

[1] Department of Genetics, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA;Department of Pathology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA;Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC, USA;Department of Molecular Genetics and Microbiology, Duke University Medical Center, Durham, NC, USA

关键词: Bacterial dissemination;    In vivo imaging;    Bioluminescence;    Plague;   

Others  :  1221817
DOI  :  10.1186/1471-2180-12-147

 received in 2012-05-11, accepted in 2012-07-24,  发布年份 2012

【 摘 要 】

Background

Plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium that disseminates inside of the host at remarkably high rates. Plague bacilli disrupt normal immune responses in the host allowing for systematic spread that is fatal if left untreated. How Y. pestis disseminates from the site of infection to deeper tissues is unknown. Dissemination studies for plague are typically performed in mice by determining the bacterial burden in specific organs at various time points. To follow bacterial dissemination during plague infections in mice we tested the possibility of using bioluminescence imaging (BLI), an alternative non-invasive approach. Fully virulent Y. pestis was transformed with a plasmid containing the luxCDABE genes, making it able to produce light; this lux-expressing strain was used to infect mice by subcutaneous, intradermal or intranasal inoculation.

Results

We successfully obtained images from infected animals and were able to follow bacterial dissemination over time for each of the three different routes of inoculation. We also compared the radiance signal from animals infected with a wild type strain and a Δcaf1ΔpsaA mutant that we previously showed to be attenuated in colonization of the lymph node and systemic dissemination. Radiance signals from mice infected with the wild type strain were larger than values obtained from mice infected with the mutant strain (linear regression of normalized values, P < 0.05).

Conclusions

We demonstrate that BLI is useful for monitoring dissemination from multiple inoculation sites, and for characterization of mutants with defects in colonization or dissemination.

【 授权许可】

   
2012 Gonzalez et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd.

【 图 表 】

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