Scientific article
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Dictyostelium discoideumMycobacterium marinum infection model: a powerful high-throughput screening platform for anti-infective compounds

Published inFrontiers in microbiology, vol. 16, 1612354
First online date2025-07-04
Abstract

Tuberculosis is among the world's deadliest diseases, causing approximately 2 million deaths annually. The urgent need for new antitubercular drugs has been intensified by the rise of drug-resistant strains. Despite recent advancements, most hits identified through traditional target-based screening approaches exhibit limited efficacy in vivo . Consequently, there is a growing demand for whole-cell-based approaches that utilize host-pathogen systems directly. The Dictyostelium discoideum -Mycobacterium marinum host-pathogen system is a well-established and powerful alternative model system for studying mycobacterial infections. In this article, we present a phenotypic host-pathogen assay protocol that monitors M. marinum during infection of the amoeba D. discoideum . This assay is characterized by its scalability for high-throughput screening, robustness, and ease of manipulation, making it an effective system for compound screening. Notably, this system provides dual readouts: bacterial load via a bioluminescent M. marinum strain and host survival and growth via a fluorescent D. discoideum strain, enabling further host characterization by quantifying growth inhibition and potential cytotoxicity. Finally, the assay was benchmarked against selected antibiotics and anti-infectives, and IC50 s and MIC values were calculated where applicable, demonstrating its ability to differentiate between antibiotics and anti-infective compounds.

Keywords
  • Dictyostelium discoideum
  • Mycobacterium marinum
  • Anti-infectives
  • High-throughput
  • Phenotypic screening
Research groups
Citation (ISO format)
NITSCHKE, Jahn, HANNA, Nabil, SOLDATI, Thierry. Dictyostelium discoideumMycobacterium marinum infection model: a powerful high-throughput screening platform for anti-infective compounds. In: Frontiers in microbiology, 2025, vol. 16, p. 1612354. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2025.1612354
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Article (Published version)
Identifiers
Journal ISSN1664-302X
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