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3R-Project 99-05
The NEMO network (Non-mammalian Experimental Models for the study of bacterial infections)
Coordinator of the network:
Pierre Cosson
Centre Médical Universitaire, Département de Physiologie Cellulaire et Métabolisme, 1 rue Michel Servet, CH-1211 Genève, Suisse
pierre.cosson@medecine.unige.ch
Keywords: bacteria; drosophila; protozoa: amoeba; infectious diseases; reduction; replacement; infectiosity
Duration: 2 years End of the Project: 2009
Background and Aim
To test the ability of a bacteria to cause a disease it is usually necessary to infect a mammalian host and allow the disease to progress. These experiments inflict significant suffering to the animals. Our general aim is to stimulate the emergence of a community of scientists using alternative non-mammalian hosts for the study of bacterial infections. Our common belief is that many experiments currently carried out using mammalian hosts could be advantageously replaced by the use of alternative non-mammalian hosts.
The NEMO network of laboratories was created in February 2005, initially as an informal gathering of research groups involved in similar subjects. Our specific goals are:
1-To organize an annual meeting on the theme of Non-mammalian hosts for the study of bacterial infections, in order to stimulate exchanges among research groups.
2-To strengthen our research in this field through a series of collaborative projects, for which we hope to find financial support.
3-To publicize the use of alternative non-mammalian hosts in the scientific community.
More about the activity of NEMO:
see: Annual Report 2005
NEMO meeting 2006
The five research groups that originally created the NEMO network are:
Pr. Dr. P. Cosson, Centre Médical Universitaire, Geneva, Switzerland
pierre.cosson@medecine.unige.ch
Project:
Extensive analysis of bacterial virulence in Dictyostelium
Dr. Marie-Odile Fauvarque, CEA-Grenoble, Département de Réponse et Dynamique Cellulaires, France
marie-odile.fauvarque@cea.fr
Project:
Bacterial virulence and innate immune response: Drosophila as a model system.
Dr. G. Greub, Microbiology Institute, Faculty of Biology and Medicine, University of Lausanne, Switzerland
gilbert.greub@chuv.ch
Project:
Free-living amoebae as a tool to study intracellular pathogens.
Prof. Dr. Hubert Hilbi, Institute of Microbiology, ETH Zürich, Switzerland
hilbi @ micro.biol.ethz.ch
Project:
Amoebae: a cellular pathogenesis model for the legionnairesīdisease agent Legionella pneumophila
Dr. Thierry Soldati, Department of Biochemistry, University of Geneva, Switzerland
thierry.soldati@biochem.unige.ch
Project:
The Amoeba Dictyostelium as a model host for Mycobacterium marinum infection and persistence.
Method and Results
in progress (present status)
References
Publications from members of NEMO since 2005:
Cosson et al.:
Benghezal, M., Fauvarque, MO., Tournebize, R., Froquet, R., Marchetti, A., Bergeret, E., Lardy, B., Klein, G., Sansonetti, P., Charette, S.J., Cosson, P. 2006. Specific host genes required for the killing of Klebsiella bacteria by phagocytes. Cell. Microbiol. 8 :139-148.
Charette, S., Cornillon, S., Cosson, P. 2006. Identification of low frequency knockout mutants in Dictyostelium discoideum by single or double homologous recombination. J. Biotechnology 122 :1-4.
Cornillon, S., Gebbie, L., Benghezal, M., Nair, P., Keller, S., Wehrle-Haller, B., Charette, S.J., Brückert, F., Letourneur, F., Cosson, P. 2006. An adehsion molecule in free-living Dictyostelium amoebae with integrin beta features. EMBO Reports. In press
Fauvarque et al.
Avet-Rochex A, Bergeret E, Attrée I, Meister M and Fauvarque M-O (2005). Suppression of Drosophila cellular immunity by directed expression of the ExoS toxin GAP domain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Cell. Microbiology 7 :799-810
Greub et al.
G. Greub, H. Lepidi, C. Rovery, JP. Casalta, G. Habib, F. Collard, PE. Fournier, and D. Raoult. Usefulness of valve analysis for the diagnosis of infective endocarditis. Am J Med, 2005;118:230-238.
G. Greub, J.-L. Mege, J.P. Gorvel, D. Raoult, S. Meresse. Intracellular traffickying of Parachlamydia acanthamoebae within human macrophages. Cell Microbiol, 2005;7:581-589.
Thomas, V., Herrera-Rimann, K., Blanc, D., Greub, G. 2006. Biodiversity of amoebae and amoebae-resisting bacteria in a hospital water network. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 72 :2428-2438.
Casson, N., Medico, N., Bille, J., Greub, G. 2006. Parachlamydia acanthamoebae enters and multiplies within pneumocytes and lung pneumocytes and lung fibroblasts. Microb. Infect. In press.
Hilbi et al:
Albers, U., Reus, K., Shuman, H.A. & Hilbi, H. 2005. The amoebae plate test implicates a paralogue of lpxB in the interaction of Legionella pneumophila with Acanthamoeba castellanii. Microbiol. 151 :167-182.
Mampel, J., Spirig, T., Weber, S., Haagensen, J.A.J., Molin, S., Hilbi, H. 2006. Planktonic replication is essential for biofilm formation of Legionella pneumophila in a complex medium under static and dynamic flow conditions. Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 72 :2885-2895.
Weber, S., Ragaz, C., Reus, K., Nyfeler, Y., Hilbi, H. 2006. Legionella pneumophila exploits PI(4)P to anchor secreted effector proteins to the replicative vacuole. PLOS Pathogens 2 :e46.
Soldati et al:
Hagedorn, M., Neuhaus, E.N., Soldati, T. 2006. Optimised fixation and immunofluorescence protocols for Dictyostelium cells. Methods Mol. Biol. Dictyostelium discoideum Protocols edited by Eichinger and Rivero, Humana Press Totowa, NJ. Chapter 20:327-338.
Gotthardt, D., Dieckmann, R., Blancheteau, V., Kistler, C., Reichardt, F., Soldati, T. 2006. Preparation of intact, highly purified phagosomes from Dictyostelium. Methods. Mol. Biol. Dictyostelium discoideum Protocols edited by Eichinger and Rivero, Humana Press Totowa, NJ. Chapter 26:439-448.
Soldati, T., Schliwa. 2006. Powering membrane traffic in endocytosis and exocytosis. Nature Reviews in Molecular Cell Biology. In press.
Figure 1. To study infectious diseases, it is not always necessary to infect animals. Researchers in the NEMO Network use more simple hosts such as amoebae, or drosophila flies. In this picture an amoeba (white) eating up a yeast cell (red) is shown.
Figures
Figure 1: To study infectious diseases, it is not always necessary to infect animals. Researchers in the NEMO Network use more simple hosts such as amoebae, or drosophila flies. In this picture an amoeba (white) eating up a yeast cell (red).
| Dernières modifications: 07.03.2010 |  |