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Updated: Jun 1, 2026

Using a Bacterial Pathogen to Probe for Cellular and Organismic-level Host Responses
Published on: February 22, 2019
Host resource supplies influence the dynamics and outcome of infectious disease
1Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Kansas, Lawrence, KS 66045.
Abstract:
Pathogens and their host organisms share a wide range of resource needs that are required to support normal metabolism and growth. Because the development of infectious disease on or within the host involves the processes of invasion and resource consumption, competition for growth-limiting resources potentially may occur between pathogens and cellular or sub-cellular components of the host ecosystem. Examples from the plant, animal, and microbiological literature provide unambiguous evidence that external resource supplies to the host organism can have profound effects on the outcome of infection by a broad diversity of bacterial, fungal, metazoan, protozoan, and viral pathogens.
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