Model Organisms and Antimicrobial Drug Discovery

Abstract

Numerous mammalian and non-mammalian hosts have been extensively employed to study the action of virulence determinants, mechanism of host defense, and pharmacokinetics of drugs. several synthetic, as well as natural antimicrobial compounds, have been identified using mammalian as well as non-mammalian infection models. In vivo screening approach using animal models allows concurrent assessment of drug efficacy and toxicity of the antimicrobial drugs. Mice model has been intensively used to explore the virulence attributes and understand the infection process. It also facilitates in-depth comparative studies which are highly relevant for clinical applications. However, the large-scale screening of antimicrobial agents using rodents suffers from high cost and ethical constrains. Non-mammalian host models such as the larvae of Caenorhabditis elegans and zebra fish allows non-invasive real-time imaging of the bacterial cells at various stages of the infection. Due to their strong functional and structural similarities with an immune response that of the mammals, insect models like Drosophila melanogaster, Galleria mellonella, and Bombyx mori have also been extensively used to study the virulence phenotypes and therapeutic efficacy of novel antimicrobial drugs. Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a popular invertebrate host model for screening and identification of antimicrobial agents due to its highly conserved and homologous gene function to that of human subjects.