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Assessing Pseudomonas aeruginosa Virulence and the Host Response Using Murine Models of Acute and Chronic Lung Infection

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Pseudomonas Methods and Protocols

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 1149))

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.

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Acknowledgements

R. C. Levesque is a research scholar of exceptional merit from the Fond de Recherche du Québec en Santé (FRQS). His laboratory is funded by the Canadian Institute for Health Research (CIHR), a CIHR-UK team grant, the CIHR-FRQS-Québec Respiratory Health Network (RSR), the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), Genome Québec, the Fonds de recherche du Québec Nature et technologies, and the Alberta Innovates Bio Solutions program.

Research in Bragonzi’s laboratory is funded by the Italian Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFaCore) and the European Commission (Grant NABATIVI, EU-FP7-HEALTH-2007-B, contract number 223670).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut de Biologie Intégrative et des Systèmes (IBIS), Université Laval, 1030 av. de la médecine, Québec, QC, Canada, G1V 0A6

    Irena Kukavica-Ibrulj & Roger C. Levesque

  2. Infection and Cystic Fibrosis Unit, Division of Immunology, Transplantation, and Infectious Diseases, San Raffaele Scientific Institute, Milan, Italy

    Marcella Facchini, Cristina Cigana & Alessandra Bragonzi

Authors
  1. Irena Kukavica-Ibrulj
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  2. Marcella Facchini
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  3. Cristina Cigana
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  4. Roger C. Levesque
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  5. Alessandra Bragonzi
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Roger C. Levesque .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. MRC Centre for Molecular Bacteriology and Infection (CMBI) Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College, London, UK

    Alain Filloux

  2. Estación Experimental del Zaidín, Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, Granada, Spain

    Juan-Luis Ramos

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Kukavica-Ibrulj, I., Facchini, M., Cigana, C., Levesque, R.C., Bragonzi, A. (2014). Assessing Pseudomonas aeruginosa Virulence and the Host Response Using Murine Models of Acute and Chronic Lung Infection. In: Filloux, A., Ramos, JL. (eds) Pseudomonas Methods and Protocols. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1149. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0473-0_58

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-0473-0_58

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  • Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-0472-3

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-0473-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Protocols

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