Strain-Specific Virulence Phenotypes of Streptococcus pneumoniae Assessed Using the Chinchilla laniger Model of Otitis Media

Michael L Forbes, Edward Horsey, N Luisa Hiller, Farrel J Buchinsky, Jay D Hayes, James M Compliment, Todd Hillman, Suzanne Ezzo, Kai Shen, Randy Keefe, Karen Barbadora, J Christopher Post, Fen Ze Hu and Garth D Ehrlich

PLOS ONE, 2008, vol. 3, issue 4, 1-11

Abstract: Background: Streptococcus pneumoniae [Sp] infection is associated with local and systemic disease. Our current understanding of the differential contributions of genetic strain variation, serotype, and host response to disease phenotype is incomplete. Using the chinchilla model of otitis media [OM] we investigated the disease phenotype generated by the laboratory strain TIGR4 and each of thirteen clinical strains (BS68-75, BS290, BS291, BS293, BS436 and BS437); eleven of the thirteen strains have been genomically sequenced. Methodology/Principal Findings: For each strain 100 colony forming units were injected bilaterally into the tympanic bullae of 6 young adult chinchillas under general anesthesia. All animals were examined daily for local and systemic disease by a blinded observer. Pneumatic otoscopy was used to evaluate local disease, and behavioral assessments served as the measure of systemic disease. Virulence scoring was performed using a 4-point scale to assess four clinical parameters [severity and rapidity of local disease onset; and severity and rapidity of systemic disease onset] during a 10-day evaluation period. Highly significant variation was observed among the strains in their ability to cause disease and moribundity. Conclusions/Significance: As expected, there was a significant correlation between the rapidity of systemic disease onset and severity of systemic disease; however, there was little correlation between the severity of otoscopic changes and severity of systemic disease. Importantly, it was observed that different strains of the same serotype produced as broad an array of disease phenotypes as did strains of different serotypes. We attribute these phenotypic differences among the strains to the high degree of genomic plasticity that we have previously documented.

Date: 2008
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0001969 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 01969&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0001969

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0001969

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().