Of mice, flies--and men? Comparing fungal infection models for large-scale screening efforts.

ABSTRACT: Studying infectious diseases requires suitable hosts for experimental in vivo infections. Recent years have seen the advent of many alternatives to murine infection models. However, the use of non-mammalian models is still controversial because it is often unclear how well findings from these systems predict virulence potential in humans or other mammals. Here, we compare the commonly used models, fruit fly and mouse (representing invertebrate and mammalian hosts), for their similarities and degree of correlation upon infection with a library of mutants of an important fungal pathogen, the yeast Candida glabrata. Using two indices, for fly survival time and for mouse fungal burden in specific organs, we show a good agreement between the models. We provide a suitable predictive model for es

SUBMITTER: Brunke S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4415897 | biostudies-literature | 2015 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature