Staphylococcus aureus is one of the most important pathogens facing the world today. So far, much of our understanding of how S. aureus causes disease has been derived from experiments using infection models such as rabbits, rats and mice; however, these models can only offer so much without fully representing a typical human infection. Recently it has been found that many of the virulence factors produced by S. aureus are only active within humans, meaning that any infection model lacking the targets of these factors cannot account for their role during infection. The Zebrafish (Danio rerio) is already an established model in developmental biology and immunology research, with many tools and techniques readily available for working with them, facilitated by their genetic tractability. As well as being amenable to imaging and reproducible in high-throughput, Zebrafish have an immune system that is closely similar to humans, making it already a more suitable model for the study of infection over existing models. The project will aim to create transgenic lines of Zebrafish which express these human components that are specifically targeted by S. aureus; these lines can then be dissected with high resolution to determine some of the roles that these factors play in shaping a S. aureus infection. |
The Team
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