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Updated: Oct 19, 2025
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Testing the Role of Multicopy Plasmids in the Evolution of Antibiotic Resistance
Published on: May 2, 2018
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Evolution of pathogen tolerance and emerging infections: A missing experimental paradigm
Srijan Seal1, Guha Dharmarajan2, Imroze Khan1
1Ashoka University, Sonepat, India.
Elife
|September 21, 2021
Summary
Reservoir hosts may evolve tolerance to zoonotic pathogens, allowing them to carry diseases without illness. This tolerance can increase pathogen spread and create new spillover risks for humans.
Area of Science:
- Ecology
- Evolutionary Biology
- Immunology
Background:
- Human encroachment into natural habitats increases the risk of zoonotic disease spillover.
- Zoonotic pathogens often cause no disease in their natural reservoir hosts.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the evolutionary basis of pathogen tolerance in reservoir hosts.
- To understand how host immunity, physiology, and ecology influence zoonotic pathogen dynamics.
Main Methods:
- Reviewing evolutionary mechanisms of host-pathogen interactions.
- Analyzing physiological and life-history traits of reservoir species.
- Considering ecological factors in host-pathogen dynamics.
Main Results:
- Long-term co-evolution may lead to evolved tolerance in reservoir hosts.
- Tolerance can enhance pathogen circulation and infectious periods.
- This process may foster pathogen genetic diversity, increasing spillover potential.
Conclusions:
- Evolved tolerance in reservoir hosts is a critical factor in zoonotic disease dynamics.
- Understanding these mechanisms requires a multidisciplinary empirical framework.
- This research highlights the need to study host-pathogen interactions in natural ecosystems to predict and prevent future pandemics.
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