Increased Susceptibility of Humanized NSG Mice to Panton-Valentine Leukocidin and Staphylococcus aureus Skin Infection.

ABSTRACT: Staphylococcus aureus is a leading cause of skin and soft-tissue infections worldwide. Mice are the most commonly used animals for modeling human staphylococcal infections. However a supra-physiologic S. aureus inoculum is required to establish gross murine skin pathology. Moreover, many staphylococcal factors, including Panton-Valentine leukocidin (PVL) elaborated by community-associated methicillin-resistant S. aureus (CA-MRSA), exhibit selective human tropism and cannot be adequately studied in mice. To overcome these deficiencies, we investigated S. aureus infection in non-obese diabetic (NOD)/severe combined immune deficiency (SCID)/IL2rγnull (NSG) mice engrafted with human CD34+ umbilical cord blood cells. These "humanized" NSG mice require one to two log lower inoculum to induce con

SUBMITTER: Tseng CW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4664407 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature