Listeria monocytogenes Infection of the Brain

Listeria monocytogenes is an intracellular bacterial pathogen that is frequently associated with food-borne infection. The ability of L. monocytogenes to cross the blood-brain barrier (BBB) is concerning as it can lead to life-threatening meningitis and encephalitis. The BBB protects the brain microenvironment from various toxic metabolites and microbial pathogens found in the blood following infection, and therefore supports brain homeostasis. The mechanisms by which L. monocytogenes present in the bloodstream cross the BBB to cause brain infections are not fully understood and there is also a lack of a robust model system to study brain infections by L. monocytogenes. Here, we present a simple mouse infection model to determine whether bacteria have crossed the BBB and to quantitate the burden of bacteria that have colonized the brain in vivo. In this method, animals were infected intravenously with L. monocytogenes and were humanely euthanized by exposure to CO2 followed by cervical dislocation. Cardiac perfusion of the animals was performed prior to harvesting infected organs. Blood was collected before perfusion and the number of bacteria per organ or mL of blood was determined by plating dilutions of the blood or organ homogenates on agar plates and counting the number of colonies formed. This method can be used to study novel receptor-ligand interactions that enhance infection of the brain by L. monocytogenes and can be easily adapted for the study of multiple bacterial pathogens.