A Disease Model of Muscle Necrosis Caused by Infection in .

A variety of bacterial infections cause muscle necrosis in humans. has epidermis and bands of muscle that resemble soft-tissue structures in mammals and humans. Here, we developed a muscle necrosis model caused by infection in . Our data showed that infected and killed rapidly. Characteristic muscle damage in induced by was demonstrated . Relative expression levels of host necrosis-associated genes, , , and increased significantly after infection. The RNAi sensitive NL2099 ) worms with knockdown of necrosis genes of and by RNAi showed prolonged survival after infection. Specifically knockdown of and by RNAi in WM118 worms, which restricted RNAi only to the muscle cells, conferred significant resistance to infection. In contrast, the severity of muscle damage and toxicity produced by the hemolysin-deletion mutant is attenuated. In another example, shiga-like toxin-producing enterohemorrhagic (EHEC) known to elicit toxicity to with concomitant enteropathogenicty, did not cause muscle necrosis as did. Taken together, these results show that infection induces muscle necrosis and rapid death of infected , which are similar to muscle necrosis in humans, and then validate the value of the model with infection in studying pathogenicity.