Use of zebrafish to probe the divergent virulence potentials and toxin requirements of extraintestinal pathogenic Escherichia coli.

ABSTRACT: Extraintestinal pathogenic E. coli (ExPEC) cause an array of diseases, including sepsis, neonatal meningitis, and urinary tract infections. Many putative virulence factors that might modulate ExPEC pathogenesis have been identified through sequencing efforts, epidemiology, and gene expression profiling, but few of these genes have been assigned clearly defined functional roles during infection. Using zebrafish embryos as surrogate hosts, we have developed a model system with the ability to resolve diverse virulence phenotypes and niche-specific restrictions among closely related ExPEC isolates during either localized or systemic infections. In side-by-side comparisons of prototypic ExPEC isolates, we observed an unexpectedly high degree of phenotypic diversity that is not readily apparent

SUBMITTER: Wiles TJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2785880 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature