Abstract

L. monocytogenes are facultative intracellular bacterial pathogens that cause food borne infections in humans. Very little is known about the gastrointestinal phase of listeriosis due to the lack of a small animal model that closely mimics human disease. This paper describes a novel mouse model for oral transmission of L. monocytogenes. Using this model, mice fed L. monocytogenes-contaminated bread have a discrete phase of gastrointestinal infection, followed by varying degrees of systemic spread in susceptible (BALB/c/By/J) or resistant (C57BL/6) mouse strains. During the later stages of the infection, dissemination to the gall bladder and brain is observed. The food borne model of listeriosis is highly reproducible, does not require specialized skills, and can be used with a wide variety of bacterial isolates and laboratory mouse strains. As such, it is the ideal model to study both virulence strategies used by L. monocytogenes to promote intestinal colonization, as well as the host response to invasive food borne bacterial infection.

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

5-6-2013

Notes/Citation Information

Published in the Journal of Visualized Experiments, issue 75, article e50381, p. 1-8.

Copyright © 2013 Journal of Visualized Experiments

This article also features a video presentation, available at http://dx.doi.org/10.3791/50381

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

http://dx.doi.org/10.3791/50381

Funding Information

This work was supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health (AI079442 and AI091918) awarded to S.E.F.D.

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