Infection of Tribolium castaneum with Bacillus thuringiensis: quantification of bacterial replication within cadavers, transmission via cannibalism, and inhibition of spore germination.

ABSTRACT: Reproduction within a host and transmission to the next host are crucial for the virulence and fitness of pathogens. Nevertheless, basic knowledge about such parameters is often missing from the literature, even for well-studied bacteria, such as Bacillus thuringiensis, an endospore-forming insect pathogen, which infects its hosts via the oral route. To characterize bacterial replication success, we made use of an experimental oral infection system for the red flour beetle Tribolium castaneum and developed a flow cytometric assay for the quantification of both spore ingestion by the individual beetle larvae and the resulting spore load after bacterial replication and resporulation within cadavers. On average, spore numbers increased 460-fold, showing that Bacillus thuringiensis grows and r

SUBMITTER: Milutinovic B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4651099 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature