Using phylogeographic link-prediction in primates to prioritize human parasite screening.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

The ongoing risk of emerging infectious disease has renewed calls for understanding the origins of zoonoses and identifying future zoonotic disease threats. Given their close phylogenetic relatedness and geographic overlap with humans, non-human primates (NHPs) have been the source of many infectious diseases throughout human evolution. NHPs harbor diverse parasites, with some infecting only a single host species while others infect species from multiple families.

Materials and methods

We applied a novel link-prediction method to predict undocumented instances of parasite sharing between humans and NHPs. Our model makes predictions based on phylogenetic distances and geographic overlap among NHPs and humans in six countries with high NHP diversity: Columbia, Brazi

SUBMITTER: Werner CS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10878720 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature