Unraveling the epidemiology of <i>Mycobacterium bovis</i> using whole-genome sequencing combined with environmental and demographic data.

ABSTRACT: When studying the dynamics of a pathogen in a host population, one crucial question is whether it transitioned from an epidemic (i.e., the pathogen population and the number of infected hosts are increasing) to an endemic stable state (i.e., the pathogen population reached an equilibrium). For slow-growing and slow-evolving clonal pathogens such as Mycobacterium bovis, the causative agent of bovine (or animal) and zoonotic tuberculosis, it can be challenging to discriminate between these two states. This is a result of the combination of suboptimal detection tests so that the actual extent of the pathogen prevalence is often unknown, as well as of the low genetic diversity, which can hide the temporal signal provided by the accumulation of mutations in the bacterial DNA. In recent y

SUBMITTER: Rossi G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10230100 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature