Galleria mellonella: The Versatile Host for Drug Discovery, In Vivo Toxicity Testing and Characterising Host-Pathogen Interactions.

Magdalena Piatek,Kevin Kavanagh,Gerard Sheehan

doi:10.3390/antibiotics10121545

Magdalena Piatek, Kevin Kavanagh + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/antibiotics10121545

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Abstract

Larvae of the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, are a convenient in vivo model for assessing the activity and toxicity of antimicrobial agents and for studying the immune response to pathogens and provide results similar to those from mammals. G. mellonella larvae are now widely used in academia and industry and their use can assist in the identification and evaluation of novel antimicrobial agents. Galleria larvae are inexpensive to purchase and house, easy to inoculate, generate results within 24–48 h and their use is not restricted by legal or ethical considerations. This review will highlight how Galleria larvae can be used to assess the efficacy of novel antimicrobial therapies (photodynamic therapy, phage therapy, metal-based drugs, triazole-amino acid hybrids) and for determining the in vivo toxicity of compounds (e.g., food preservatives, ionic liquids) and/or solvents (polysorbate 80). In addition, the disease development processes are associated with a variety of pathogens (e.g., Staphylococcus aureus, Listeria monocytogenes, Aspergillus fumigatus, Madurella mycotomatis) in mammals are also present in Galleria larvae thus providing a simple in vivo model for characterising disease progression. The use of Galleria larvae offers many advantages and can lead to an acceleration in the development of novel antimicrobials and may be a prerequisite to mammalian testing.

Highlights

Insects possess a highly successful immune system that rapidly identifies pathogens and parasites and either kills them directly or immobilises them ensuring the survival of the host [1]
A wide range of structural and functional similarities exist between the insect immune response and the innate immune response of mammals [2,3] and, as a result, a wide variety of insects (Galleria mellonella, Drosophila melanogaster, Manduca sexta, Bombyx mori) is used as in vivo models for assessing microbial virulence or for evaluating the in vivo efficacy and toxicity of antimicrobial compounds [4,5,6,7]
This review will provide an insight into how Galleria larvae can be used to assess the in vivo efficacy and toxicity of novel antibacterial and antifungal agents and to study disease development processes in vivo

Summary

Introduction

Insects possess a highly successful immune system that rapidly identifies pathogens and parasites and either kills them directly or immobilises them ensuring the survival of the host [1]. The use of Galleria larvae has bacterial isolates to conventional antibiotics, there is an urgent need to develop contribnovel uted to this objective by allowing accelerated in vivo assessment ofhas potentially novel antimicrobials with distinct modes the of action. Further analysis indicated an increase in phage efficacy and reduction fered the greatest level of protection against Clostridium difficile infection with 100% larval in bacterial prophylactic use of [14]. This therapy induced an immune response and a 2.62-fold increase in haemocyte (immune cell) density. G. mellonella larvae were administered the antimicrobial peptide-containing hydrogel (Naphthalene-2-ly)-acetyl-diphenylalanine-dilysine-OH (NapFFKK-OH) (Figure 2) via intra-hemocoel injection. Larvae injected with 0.5–2% (w/v) NapFFKK-OH maintained full survival up to 120 h, demonstrating more desirable results compared to in vitro assessment on murine fibroblast cells.

Evaluation

70. Adapted

Conclusions