Mouse models to study the pathogenesis and control of bovine mastitis. A review

Mastitis is a major infectious disease affecting high yielding cows in dairy herds. Because of its economic impact and due to the animal welfare policy, the pathogenesis of this intramammary infection was studied extensively over the past 50 years. Still, the costs associated with the use of dairy cows for mastitis research constitute a major drawback. As an alternative, a mouse model of experimentally induced mastitis was developed some decades ago. This model has been increasingly used as it appears to be very suited for studying ruminant mastitis due to similarities between mice and cows. The various techniques for inducing mastitis in mice as well as the different pathogens and initial inoculum doses used are also compared in this review. Moreover, recent findings concerning the administration of antimicrobial and immunomodulatory agents are discussed. In addition, information is provided on the most novel approaches for the study of mastitis including the use of mutant pathogen strains and transgenic mice.