Organ agar serves as physiologically relevant alternative for in vivo bacterial colonization.
Infect Immun
; 91(11): e0035523, 2023 Nov 16.
Article
in En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-37850748
ABSTRACT
Animal models for host-microbial interactions have proven valuable, yielding physiologically relevant data that may be otherwise difficult to obtain. Unfortunately, such models are lacking or nonexistent for many microbes. Here, we introduce organ agar, a straightforward method to enable the screening of large mutant libraries while avoiding physiological bottlenecks. We demonstrate that growth defects on organ agar were translatable to bacterial colonization deficiencies in a murine model. Specifically, we present a urinary tract infection agar model to interrogate an ordered library of Proteus mirabilis transposon mutants, with accurate prediction of bacterial genes critical for host colonization. Thus, we demonstrate the ability of ex vivo organ agar to reproduce in vivo deficiencies. Organ agar was also useful for identifying previously unknown links between biosynthetic genes and swarming motility. This work provides a readily adoptable technique that is economical and uses substantially fewer animals. We anticipate this method will be useful for a wide variety of microorganisms, both pathogenic and commensal, in a diverse range of model host species.
Key words
Full text:
1
Collection:
01-internacional
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Urinary Tract Infections
Limits:
Animals
Language:
En
Journal:
Infect Immun
Year:
2023
Document type:
Article
Affiliation country: