Serial infection of diverse host (Mus) genotypes rapidly impedes pathogen fitness and virulence.

ABSTRACT: Reduced genetic variation among hosts may favour the emergence of virulent infectious diseases by enhancing pathogen replication and its associated virulence due to adaptation to a limited set of host genotypes. Here, we test this hypothesis using experimental evolution of a mouse-specific retroviral pathogen, Friend virus (FV) complex. We demonstrate rapid fitness (i.e. viral titre) and virulence increases when FV complex serially infects a series of inbred mice representing the same genotype, but not when infecting a diverse array of inbred mouse strains modelling the diversity in natural host populations. Additionally, a single infection of a different host genotype was sufficient to constrain the emergence of a high fitness/high virulence FV complex phenotype in these experiments. The

SUBMITTER: Kubinak JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4262163 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature