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Insects Offer a Useful Invertebrate Model to Screen Antimicrobial Libraries In Vivo

Ruqaiyyah Siddiqui and Ahmed Khan

This report describes an invertebrate, Locusta migratoria as an in vivo model to screen potential antimicrobial compounds (chemical libraries) to combat infectious diseases. Locusts were infected with 2 x 106 c.f.u. of Pseudomonas aeruginosa or Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) and mortality recorded at 67% and 52%, respectively within 24 h. To validate the suitability of locust model to test the efficacy of potential antimicrobials, locusts were injected with P. aeruginosa or MRSA, followed by injection of the gentamicin. Our results show that the group treated with gentamicin resisted the bacterial infection, while the untreated group presented high mortality. It is believed that the simple locust model described in the present study has the scope in exploring the efficacy of novel drugs (testing large chemical libraries) in microbial diseases, allowing inexpensive, rapid, and even high-throughput experimentation that has no legislative restrictions.