Pathogen population bottlenecks and adaptive landscapes: overcoming the barriers to disease emergence.

ABSTRACT: Emerging diseases are a major challenge to public health. Revealing the evolutionary processes that allow novel pathogens to adapt to new hosts, also the potential barriers to host adaptation, is central to understanding the drivers of disease emergence. In particular, it is unclear how the genetics and ecology of pathogens interact to shape the likelihood of successful cross-species transmission. To better understand the determinants of host adaptation and emergence, we modelled key aspects of pathogen evolutionary dynamics at both intra- and inter-host scales, using parameter values similar to those observed in influenza virus. We considered the possibility of acquiring the necessary host adaptive mutations both before ('off-the-shelf' emergence) and after ('tailor-made' emergence) a vir

SUBMITTER: Geoghegan JL 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5013787 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature