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Multiscale Immune Selection and the Transmission-Diversity Feedback in Antigenically Diverse Pathogen Systems
The American Naturalist
|November 17, 2018
Summary
Pathogen antigenic diversity, crucial for transmission, is dynamically generated by infection and disease spread. This feedback loop impacts immune evasion and disease control strategies.
Area of Science:
- * Parasitology and Evolutionary Biology
- * Mathematical Modeling of Infectious Diseases
Background:
- * Pathogens utilize antigenic diversity for transmission success, with within-host variation prolonging infections and population-level diversity increasing susceptible hosts.
- * Antigenic diversity is not static but actively generated during infection and transmission, responding dynamically to immune selection pressures.
- * The human malaria parasite, Plasmodium falciparum, is a key example of an antigenically diverse pathogen.
Purpose of the Study:
- * To investigate the hypothesis that infection and disease transmission create a positive feedback loop, generating antigenic diversity.
- * To understand how this diversity facilitates immune evasion and subsequent infections.
- * To model the dynamic interplay between transmission, diversity generation, and immune selection in Plasmodium falciparum.
Main Methods:
- * Development of an individual-based model to simulate antigenic diversity as a dynamic property of transmission processes.
- * Analysis of the balance between stochastic extinction and the generation of new antigenic variants.
- * Incorporation of within-host and between-host immune selection dynamics into the model.
Main Results:
- * The generation and extinction of antigenic variants are intrinsically linked to immune selection at both within-host and population levels.
- * This relationship dictates the level of antigenic diversity sustainable within a population.
- * The transmission-diversity feedback mechanism can introduce temporal lags in responses to changes in transmission rates.
Conclusions:
- * The dynamic generation of pathogen diversity is coupled with transmission and immune selection, creating a feedback loop.
- * This feedback influences pathogen evolution and immune evasion strategies.
- * Understanding this feedback is critical for effective disease control and monitoring, especially for diseases like malaria.
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