Bioluminescent murine models of bacterial sepsis and scald wound infections for antimicrobial efficacy testing

There are very few articles in the literature describing continuous models of bacterial infections that mimic disease pathogenesis in humans and animals without using separate cohorts of animals at each stage of disease. In this work, we developed bioluminescent mouse models of partial-thickness scald wound infection and sepsis that mimic disease pathogenesis in humans and animals using a recombinant luciferase-expressing Staphylococcus aureus strain (Xen29). Two days post-scald wound infection, mice were treated twice daily with a 2% topical mupirocin ointment for 7 days. For sepsis experiments, mice were treated intraperitoneally with 6 mg/kg daptomycin 2 h and 6 h post-infection and time to moribund monitored for 72 h. Consistent bacterial burden data were obtained from individual mice by regular photon intensity quantification on a Xenogen IVIS Lumina XRMS Series III biophotonic imaging system, with concomitant significant reduction in photon intensities in drug-treated mice. Post-mortem histopathological examination of wounds and bacterial counts in blood correlated closely with disease severity and total flux obtained from Xen29. The bioluminescent murine models provide a refinement to existing techniques of multiple bacterial enumeration during disease pathogenesis and promote animal usage reduction. The models also provide an efficient and information-rich platform for preclinical efficacy evaluation of new drug classes for treating acute and chronic human and animal bacterial infections.