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

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...

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Autores principales: Gonzalez, Rodrigo J, Weening, Eric H, Frothingham, Richard, Sempowski, Gregory D, Miller, Virginia L
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3436865/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22827851
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2180-12-147
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author Gonzalez, Rodrigo J
Weening, Eric H
Frothingham, Richard
Sempowski, Gregory D
Miller, Virginia L
author_facet Gonzalez, Rodrigo J
Weening, Eric H
Frothingham, Richard
Sempowski, Gregory D
Miller, Virginia L
author_sort Gonzalez, Rodrigo J
collection PubMed
description 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.
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spelling pubmed-34368652012-09-08 Bioluminescence imaging to track bacterial dissemination of Yersinia pestis using different routes of infection in mice Gonzalez, Rodrigo J Weening, Eric H Frothingham, Richard Sempowski, Gregory D Miller, Virginia L BMC Microbiol Methodology Article 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. BioMed Central 2012-07-24 /pmc/articles/PMC3436865/ /pubmed/22827851 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2180-12-147 Text en Copyright ©2012 Gonzalez et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Methodology Article
Gonzalez, Rodrigo J
Weening, Eric H
Frothingham, Richard
Sempowski, Gregory D
Miller, Virginia L
Bioluminescence imaging to track bacterial dissemination of Yersinia pestis using different routes of infection in mice
title Bioluminescence imaging to track bacterial dissemination of Yersinia pestis using different routes of infection in mice
title_full Bioluminescence imaging to track bacterial dissemination of Yersinia pestis using different routes of infection in mice
title_fullStr Bioluminescence imaging to track bacterial dissemination of Yersinia pestis using different routes of infection in mice
title_full_unstemmed Bioluminescence imaging to track bacterial dissemination of Yersinia pestis using different routes of infection in mice
title_short Bioluminescence imaging to track bacterial dissemination of Yersinia pestis using different routes of infection in mice
title_sort bioluminescence imaging to track bacterial dissemination of yersinia pestis using different routes of infection in mice
topic Methodology Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3436865/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22827851
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2180-12-147
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