Document Type
Article
Publication Date
8-15-2019
Abstract
Bacterial invasion of synovial joints, as in infectious or septic arthritis, can be difficult to treat in both veterinary and human clinical practice. Biofilms, in the form of free-floating clumps or aggregates, are involved with the pathogenesis of infectious arthritis and periprosthetic joint infection (PJI). Infection of a joint containing an orthopedic implant can additionally complicate these infections due to the presence of adherent biofilms. Because of these biofilm phenotypes, bacteria within these infected joints show increased antimicrobial tolerance even at high antibiotic concentrations. To date, animal models of PJI or infectious arthritis have been limited to small animals such as rodents or rabbits. Small animal models, however, yield limited quantities of synovial fluid making them impractical for in vitro research. Herein, we describe the use of ex vivo equine and porcine models for the study of synovial fluid induced biofilm aggregate formation and antimicrobial tolerance. We observed Staphylococcus aureus and other bacterial pathogens adapt the same biofilm aggregate phenotype with significant antimicrobial tolerance in both equine and porcine synovial fluid, analogous to human synovial fluid. We also demonstrate that enzymatic dispersal of synovial fluid aggregates restores the activity of antimicrobials. Future studies investigating the interaction of bacterial cell surface proteins with host synovial fluid proteins can be readily carried out in equine or porcine ex vivo models to identify novel drug targets for treatment of prevention of these difficult to treat infectious diseases.
Recommended Citation
Gilbertie, Jessica M.; Schnabel, Lauren V.; Hickok, Noreen J.; Jacob, Megan E.; Conlon, Brian P.; Shapiro, Irving; Parvizi, Javad; and Schaer, Thomas P., "Equine or porcine synovial fluid as a novel ex vivo model for the study of bacterial free-floating biofilms that form in human joint infections" (2019). Department of Orthopaedic Surgery Faculty Papers. Paper 128.
https://jdc.jefferson.edu/orthofp/128
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
PubMed ID
31415623
Language
English
Comments
This article has been peer reviewed. It is the author’s final published version in PLoS ONE, Volume 14, Issue 8, August 2019, Article number e0221012.
The published version is available at https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0221012. Copyright © Gilbertie et al.