Dynamic virulence decomposition tested on house finch data

A study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes a dynamic framework for virulence decomposition. It splits virulence into host and pathogen effects and tracks how these contributions change during infection doi.org. According to the authors, conventional decomposition was not designed to quantify how the contributions vary throughout an infection. The new approach combines conventional decomposition with disease space analysis doi.org.

Data and infection phases

The authors applied the framework to existing data from house finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) experimentally infected with the emerging bacterial pathogen Mycoplasma gallisepticum doi.org. They examined two biologically meaningful phases. The early phase is dominated by innate immune responses, and in the later phase the adaptive immune response is fully activated doi.org.

Results for virulence components

The analyses showed that virulence components evolved differently across the infection phases. Pathogen exploitation, per-parasite pathogenicity (PPP) and host resistance each followed a distinct trajectory doi.org. The results corroborated several known evolutionary patterns and also revealed the evolution of increased PPP in this system doi.org.

The apparent evolution of host tolerance, inferred from aggregated peak measurements, was not supported by phase-specific analyses doi.org. The authors conclude that aggregated and phase-specific measures can give different mechanistic insights into virulence. They describe the framework as a general approach for quantifying how host and pathogen processes shape virulence over the course of infection doi.org.

Dynamic virulence decomposition applied to house finch infection with Mycoplasma gallisepticum

Data and infection phases

Results for virulence components

Sources · 1

Read also

Alarmone ppGpp directly inhibits tRNA-modifying enzyme MnmE in Bacillus subtilis, affecting biofilm