↓ Skip to main content

Evaluation of Galleria mellonella larvae for studying the virulence of Streptococcus suis

Overview of attention for article published in BMC Microbiology, December 2016
Altmetric Badge

About this Attention Score

  • Average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age
  • Above-average Attention Score compared to outputs of the same age and source (64th percentile)

Mentioned by

twitter
5 X users

Citations

dimensions_citation
39 Dimensions

Readers on

mendeley
70 Mendeley
You are seeing a free-to-access but limited selection of the activity Altmetric has collected about this research output. Click here to find out more.
Title
Evaluation of Galleria mellonella larvae for studying the virulence of Streptococcus suis
Published in
BMC Microbiology, December 2016
DOI 10.1186/s12866-016-0905-2
Pubmed ID
Authors

Nadya Velikova, Kevin Kavanagh, Jerry M. Wells

Abstract

Streptococcus suis is an encapsulated Gram-positive bacterium and the leading cause of sepsis and meningitis in young pigs, resulting in considerable economic losses in the porcine industry. S. suis is considered an emerging zoonotic agent with increasing numbers of human cases over the last years. In the environment, both avirulent and virulent strains occur in pigs, with no evidence for consistent adapatation of virulent strains to the human host. Currently, there is an urgent need for a convenient, reliable and standardised animal model to rapidly assess S. suis virulence. Wax moth (Galleria mellonella) larvae have successfully been used in human and animal infectious disease studies. Here, we developed G. mellonella larvae as a model to assess virulence of S. suis strains. Fourteen isolates of S. suis belonging to different serotypes killed G. mellonella larvae in a dose-dependent manner. Larvae infected with the virulent serotype 2 strain, S. suis S3881/S10, were rescued by antibiotic therapy. Crucially, the observed virulence of the different serotypes and mutants was in agreement with virulence observed in piglets (Sus scrofa) and the zebrafish larval infection model. Infection with heat-inactivated bacteria or bacteria-free culture supernatants showed that in most cases live bacteria are needed to cause mortality in G. mellonella. The G. mellonella model is simple, cost-efficient, and raises less ethical issues than experiments on vertebrates and reduces infrastructure requirements. Furthermore, it allows experiments to be performed at the host temperature (37 °C). The results reported here, indicate that the G. mellonella model may aid our understanding of veterinary microbial pathogens such as the emerging zoonotic pathogen S. suis and generate hypotheses for testing in the target animal host. Ultimately, this might lead to the timely introduction of new effective remedies for infectious diseases. Last but not least, use of the G. mellonella infection model to study S. suis virulence adheres to the principles of replacement, reduction and refinement (3Rs) and can potentially reduce the number of vertebrates used for experimental infection studies.

X Demographics

X Demographics

The data shown below were collected from the profiles of 5 X users who shared this research output. Click here to find out more about how the information was compiled.
Mendeley readers

Mendeley readers

The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 70 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.

Geographical breakdown

Country Count As %
Unknown 70 100%

Demographic breakdown

Readers by professional status Count As %
Student > Ph. D. Student 9 13%
Student > Master 8 11%
Student > Doctoral Student 7 10%
Student > Bachelor 7 10%
Researcher 5 7%
Other 15 21%
Unknown 19 27%
Readers by discipline Count As %
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology 11 16%
Immunology and Microbiology 10 14%
Agricultural and Biological Sciences 6 9%
Medicine and Dentistry 4 6%
Pharmacology, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Science 3 4%
Other 12 17%
Unknown 24 34%
Attention Score in Context

Attention Score in Context

This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 2. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 01 June 2017.
All research outputs
#14,102,908
of 23,881,329 outputs
Outputs from BMC Microbiology
#1,314
of 3,286 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#217,596
of 425,827 outputs
Outputs of similar age from BMC Microbiology
#18
of 50 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,881,329 research outputs across all sources so far. This one is in the 39th percentile – i.e., 39% of other outputs scored the same or lower than it.
So far Altmetric has tracked 3,286 research outputs from this source. They receive a mean Attention Score of 4.2. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 58% of its peers.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 425,827 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one is in the 47th percentile – i.e., 47% of its contemporaries scored the same or lower than it.
We're also able to compare this research output to 50 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has gotten more attention than average, scoring higher than 64% of its contemporaries.