Assessing Pseudomonas virulence with a nonmammalian host: Drosophila melanogaster.

Abstract

Drosophila melanogaster flies represent an interesting model to study host-pathogen interactions as: (1) they are cheap and easy to raise rapidly and do not bring up ethical issues, (2) available genetic tools are highly sophisticated, for instance allowing tissue-specific alteration of gene expression, e.g., of immune genes, (3) they have a relatively complex organization, with distinct digestive tract and body cavity in which local or systemic infections, respectively, take place, (4) a medium throughput can be achieved in genetic screens, for instance looking for Pseudomonas aeruginosa mutants with altered virulence. We present here the techniques used to investigate host-pathogen relationships, namely the two major models of infections as well as the relevant parameters used to monitor the infection (survival, bacterial titer, induction of host immune response).