Using bioluminescent imaging to investigate synergism between Streptococcus pneumoniae and influenza A virus in infant mice.

Abstract

During the 1918 influenza virus pandemic, which killed approximately 50 million people worldwide, the majority of fatalities were not the result of infection with influenza virus alone. Instead, most individuals are thought to have succumbed to a secondary bacterial infection, predominately caused by the bacterium Streptococcus pneumoniae (the pneumococcus). The synergistic relationship between infections caused by influenza virus and the pneumococcus has subsequently been observed during the 1957 Asian influenza virus pandemic, as well as during seasonal outbreaks of the virus (reviewed in (1, 2)). Here, we describe a protocol used to investigate the mechanism(s) that may be involved in inc..