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Updated: Jun 16, 2026
The Citrobacter rodentium Mouse Model: Studying Pathogen and Host Contributions to Infectious Colitis
Published on: February 19, 2013
Citrobacter-induced colitis in mice with murine acquired immunodeficiency syndrome
T N Fredrickson1, J W Hartley, H C Morse
1Laboratory of Immunopathology, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
None:
Over the period of a year, colitis was observed in 44 mice raised in a conventional nonspecific pathogen-free colony, 41 of these having concomitant retrovirus-induced murine acquired immunodeficiency syndrome (MAIDS). The lesions varied from bacterial colonization to hyperplasia of colonic mucosa to severe, often fatal, ulceration. Citrobacter rodentium was isolated from the colon and/or liver of 2 mice with colitis. When C57BL/6 mice with or without MAIDS were given graded doses of the bacterium, only those with MAIDS developed colitis, and C rodentium was reisolated from their livers. Thus, mice with MAIDS can develop severe disease following opportunistic infection with an environmental contaminant of the colony that is nonpathogenic for normal adult mice.
