Comparison of Galleria mellonella , epithelial cell cytotoxicity, and mouse model of bacteremia to measure Pseudomonas aeruginosa virulence

Considerable effort has focused on identifying alternatives to mouse models in research studies. In the field of bacterial pathogenesis, Galleria mellonella and epithelial cell lines have been widely used for this purpose, but the concordance of these models with mice remains unclear. To begin to address this knowledge gap, we used 105 clinical isolates of Pseudomonas aeruginosa for which virulence had previously been determined in a mouse bacteremia model. A semistrong correlation was observed between G. mellonella median time to 50% mortality and mouse 50% pre-lethal dose (LD 50 ) values (Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient [ρ] = 0.75), whereas percent A549 epithelial-like cell lysis during co-culture showed a weak correlation to mouse LD 50 values (ρ=−0.47). Given the stronger correlation between G. mellonella and mouse virulence, we next examined whether G. mellonella could substitute for mice when asking questions about the virulence of large numbers of P. aeruginosa isolates. Results from mice indicated that isolates with resistance to more antibiotics were significantly less virulent, and the use of G. mellonella identified the same inverse correlation. Furthermore, both models found no evidence for the existence of hypervirulent clonal lineages. In particular, isolates belonging to sequence types defined as high-risk clones were not consistently more virulent than other isolates, despite the known association of high-risk clones with poor clinical outcomes. These findings suggest that G. mellonella can serve as an adequate substitute for mice when addressing specific population-based virulence questions, although conclusions should be confirmed in mice.