Larva of the greater wax moth, Galleria mellonella, is a suitable alternative host for studying virulence of fish pathogenic Vibrio anguillarum

Table 2 Comparison of virulence of Vibrio anguillarum parent and isogenic mutant strains lacking virulence factors in Galleria mellonella larva and fish models of infection

Knockout mutant	Parent	Inactivated/missing gene(s)	Gene function	Virulence change of mutant in fish	Virulence change of mutant in larvae	Reference
NB10 cured	NB10	Virulence plasmid (pJM1)	Iron-scavenging function	Not done	↓	[32]
NB12	NB10	empA	Metalloprotease	↓ (Oncorhynchus mykiss)	↑	[30]
DM16	NB10	flaA	Flagellin protein	↓ (O. mykiss)	↑	[27]
KD12	NB10	flaD	Flagellin protein	↓ (O. mykiss)	n.s.	[29]
KD27	NB10	flaE	Flagellin protein	↓ (O. mykiss)	↑	[29]
S123	M93Sm	rtxA	Repeat-in-toxin secreted toxin	↓ (Salmo salar)	↓	[7]
JR1	M93Sm	vah1	Secreted haemolysin	↓ (S. salar)	n.s.	[28]
S183	M93Sm	rtxA and vah1	Secreted toxin and haemolysin	↓ (S. salar)	↓	[7]

↑, virulence of mutant greater than parent; ↓ virulence of mutant less than parent. In the larva model, the virulence change of the mutant compared to the parent was either not significant (n.s.) or significant (p < 0.05; Holm’s corrected). n = 20

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