Line Elnif Thomsen et al. (2006) European Worm Meeting "Caenorhabditis elegans is a model host for Listeria monocytogenes"

Bente M. Jensen, Line Elnif Thomsen, Birgitte H. Kallipolitis, Nils J. Fargeman, Hanne Ingmer

[European Worm Meeting, 2006]

Line Elnif Thomsen1, Bente M. Jensen2, Nils J. Frgeman2, Birgitte H. Kallipolitis2 and Hanne Ingmer1. Several bacterial pathogens, both Gram-positive and Gram-negative, kill the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans when supplied as a food source, and a variety of bacterial virulence factors, known to play a role in mouse-models, have been shown also to play a role in nematode pathogenesis. The gram-positive facultative intracellular food-borne pathogen Listeria monocytogenes is associated with serious invasive infections in humans and animals. We have investigated the possibility of using C. elegans as a model to analyse the virulence of various L. monocytogenes strains. We found that L. monocytogenes kill C. elegans over the course of several days, as a consequence of an accumulation of bacteria in the worm intestine, and that there is an overlap between L. monocytogenes virulence factors required for mammalian and nematode pathogenesis. C. elegans is therefore an attractive model to study the virulence of this pathogen and potentially to identify new virulence factors and further work might reveal the genetic repertoire required for infection of the nematode by L. monocytogenes.