Comparing Cell Culture and Mouse Assays for Measuring Infectivity of Cryptosporidium

Cell culture techniques are routinely used for measuring the infectivity of a wide range of human pathogens. A variety of different cell culture systems and detection methodologies have been applied to Cryptosporidium parvum. However, the correlation between cell culture methods and animal infectivity assays has not been thoroughly investigated. Although many cell culture methods have been developed for C. parvum, it has not been proven that infectivity in cell culture is a good indicator of the ability of oocysts to cause infections in animals. The objective of this research was to compare in-vitro cell culture methods with a mouse assay for measuring infectivity of C. parvum oocysts. The specific objectives were to (1) compare the dose response and sensitivity of cell culture and mouse assays with multiple isolates; (2) compare infectivity methods with oocysts exposed to environmental water samples; (3) determine the reproducibility and variability of the methods; and (4) compare cell culture and animal assays for assessing ozone and UV disinfection.For untreated oocysts, challenge doses were enumerated by flow cytometry. Dose response curves were constructed by regression analysis of oocyst dose against a logistic transformation of the proportional infectivity and the 50% infectious doses for each isolate were calculated by solving the regression for a logit value of zero. Infections in CD-1 mice were detected by microscopy following staining with hematoxylin and eosin. Infection in HCT-8 and Caco-2 cells was detected by C. parvum-specific RT-PCR. In MDCK cells, infection was detected using immunofluorescence. For disinfection studies, oocysts were exposed to UV using a medium-pressure, collimated beam apparatus and inactivation was measured as the difference in ID50 of unexposed and UV-exposed oocysts. Oocysts were exposed to ozone using batch, semi-batch, and single continuously stirred tank reactors at 1, 5, and 15°C.This investigation demonstrated that in-vitro cell culture was equivalent with a mouse assay for measuring infectivity of untreated C. parvum oocysts and should therefore be considered a practical alternative for assessing the potential of oocysts to cause infection. However, the high levels of variability displayed by mouse and cell culture methods indicated that infectivity and disinfection experiments should be limited to discerning relatively large differences. Of the three cell culture assays, the HCT-8/RT-PCR method displayed the closest agreement with the CD-1 mouse assay. C. hominis ...