Host-pathogen immune feedbacks can explain widely divergent outcomes from similar infections.

ABSTRACT: A long-standing question in infection biology is why two very similar individuals, with very similar pathogen exposures, may have very different outcomes. Recent experiments have found that even isogenic Drosophila melanogaster hosts, given identical inoculations of some bacterial pathogens at suitable doses, can experience very similar initial bacteria proliferation but then diverge to either a lethal infection or a sustained chronic infection with much lower pathogen load. We hypothesized that divergent infection outcomes are a natural result of mutual negative feedbacks between pathogens and the host immune response. Here, we test this hypothesis in silico by constructing process-based dynamic models for bacterial population growth, host immune induction and the feedbacks

SUBMITTER: Ellner SP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8150042 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature