Levels of pathogen virulence and host resistance both shape the antibody response to an emerging bacterial disease.

ABSTRACT: Quantifying variation in the ability to fight infection among free-living hosts is challenging and often constrained to one or a few measures of immune activity. While such measures are typically taken to reflect host resistance, they can also be shaped by pathogen effects, for example, if more virulent strains trigger more robust immune responses. Here, we test the extent to which pathogen-specific antibody levels, a commonly used measure of immunocompetence, reflect variation in host resistance versus pathogen virulence, and whether these antibodies effectively clear infection. House finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) from resistant and susceptible populations were inoculated with > 50 isolates of their novel Mycoplasma gallisepticum pathogen collected over a 20-year period during which viru

SUBMITTER: Gates DE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8050079 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature