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Infect. Immun. doi:10.1128/IAI.00740-07
Copyright (c) 2007, American Society for Microbiology and/or the Listed Authors/Institutions. All Rights Reserved.

A novel model to study virulence determinants of Escherichia coli K1

Department of Biology, School of Biological and Chemical Sciences, Birkbeck College, Malet Street, London WC1E 7HX, UK

^* To whom correspondence should be addressed. Email: n.khan{at}sbc.bbk.ac.uk.

	Abstract

It is shown for the first time that locusts can be used as a model to study E. coli K1 pathogenesis. E. coli K12 strain HB101 has very low pathogenicity to locusts and does not invade the locust brain, whereas injection of 2 x 10⁶ E. coli K1 strain RS218 (O18:K1:H7) kills almost 100% of locusts within 72 h, and invades the brain within 24 h of injection. Both mortality and invasion of the brain in locusts after injection of E. coli K1 require at least two of the known virulence determinants shown for mammals. Thus, deletion mutants that lack OmpA (Outer membrane protein A) or CNF1 (cytotoxic necrotizing factor 1) have reduced abilities both to kill locusts and invade the locust brain compared with the parent E. coli K1. Interestingly, deletion mutants lacking FimH or the NeuDB gene cluster are still able to cause high mortality. It is argued that the likely existence of additional virulence determinants can be investigated in vivo using this insect system.

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