A microbiologist has identified a new gram-negative pathogen that causes liver disease in rats. She suspects that the bacterium's fimbriae are a virulence factor. Describe how molecular Koch's postulates could be used to test this hypothesis.

Koch's postulates

Explanation:

Koch formulated a set of criteria that could be used to identify the pathogen responsible for a specific disease and these criteria came to be known as Koch's postulates:

The organism must be regularly associated with the disease and its characteristic lesions

The organism must be isolated from the diseased host and grown in culture

The disease must be reproduced when a pure culture of the organism is introduced into a healthy, susceptible host

The same organism must be re-isolated from the experimentally infected host

In the given hypothesis, Koch's postulates could be used as:

1) identify pathogen associated with disease 2) isolate or purify pathogen 3) test subject gets pathogen 4) same disease / causes liver disease or not