Assessing Pseudomonas virulence with nonmammalian host: Galleria mellonella.

ABSTRACT

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic human pathogen responsible for severe to deadly infections in patients suffering from cystic fibrosis, AIDS, undergoing immune suppressing therapies or suffering from severe burns. In the recent years there has been an increasing interest in exploring animal infection models that, to a certain extent, could mimic human infections. Here we describe the use of the larvae of the greater wax moth Galleria mellonella as a non-expensive, easy-to-use, and easy-to-obtain animal model to study P. aeruginosa infections.