Integrating genetic and epidemiological data to determine transmission pathways of foot-and-mouth disease virus

Estimating detailed transmission trees that reflect the relationships between infected individuals or populations during a disease outbreak often provides valuable insights into both the nature of disease transmission and the overall dynamics of the underlying epidemiological process. These trees may be based on epidemiological data that relate to the timing of infection and infectiousness, or genetic data that show the genetic relatedness of pathogens isolated from infected individuals. Genetic data are becoming increasingly important in the estimation of transmission trees of viral pathogens due to their inherently high mutation rate. Here, we propose a maximum-likelihood approach that allows epidemiological and genetic data to be combined within the same analysis to infer probable transmission trees. We apply this approach to data from 20 farms infected during the 2001 UK foot-and-mouth disease outbreak, using complete viral genome sequences from each infected farm and information on when farms were first estimated to have developed clinical disease and when livestock on these farms were culled. Incorporating known infection links due to animal movement prior to imposition of the national movement ban results in the reduction of the number of trees from 41472 that are consistent with the genetic data to 1728, of which just 4 represent more than 95% of the total likelihood calculated using a model that accounts for the epidemiological data. These trees differ in several ways from those constructed prior to the availability of genetic data.     

Optimizing agent-based transmission models for infectious diseases

Background

Infectious disease modeling and computational power have evolved such that large-scale agent-based models (ABMs) have become feasible. However, the increasing hardware complexity requires adapted software designs to achieve the full potential of current high-performance workstations.

Results

We have found large performance differences with a discrete-time ABM for close-contact disease transmission due to data locality. Sorting the population according to the social contact clusters reduced simulation time by a factor of two. Data locality and model performance can also be improved by storing person attributes separately instead of using person objects. Next, decreasing the number of operations by sorting people by health status before processing disease transmission has also a large impact on model performance. Depending of the clinical attack rate, target population and computer hardware, the introduction of the sort phase decreased the run time from 26 % up to more than 70 %. We have investigated the application of parallel programming techniques and found that the speedup is significant but it drops quickly with the number of cores. We observed that the effect of scheduling and workload chunk size is model specific and can make a large difference.

Conclusions

Investment in performance optimization of ABM simulator code can lead to significant run time reductions. The key steps are straightforward: the data structure for the population and sorting people on health status before effecting disease propagation. We believe these conclusions to be valid for a wide range of infectious disease ABMs. We recommend that future studies evaluate the impact of data management, algorithmic procedures and parallelization on model performance.

Electronic supplementary material

The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12859-015-0612-2) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.     

A Bayesian approach for inferring the dynamics of partially observed endemic infectious diseases from space-time-genetic data

We describe a statistical framework for reconstructing the sequence of transmission events between observed cases of an endemic infectious disease using genetic, temporal and spatial information. Previous approaches to reconstructing transmission trees have assumed all infections in the study area originated from a single introduction and that a large fraction of cases were observed. There are as yet no approaches appropriate for endemic situations in which a disease is already well established in a host population and in which there may be multiple origins of infection, or that can enumerate unobserved infections missing from the sample. Our proposed framework addresses these shortcomings, enabling reconstruction of partially observed transmission trees and estimating the number of cases missing from the sample. Analyses of simulated datasets show the method to be accurate in identifying direct transmissions, while introductions and transmissions via one or more unsampled intermediate cases could be identified at high to moderate levels of case detection. When applied to partial genome sequences of rabies virus sampled from an endemic region of South Africa, our method reveals several distinct transmission cycles with little contact between them, and direct transmission over long distances suggesting significant anthropogenic influence in the movement of infected dogs.     

分子生物学在禽流感诊断及预防中的应用

主要介绍了PCR、RT-PCR、基因芯片、基因重组等现代分子生物学技术在禽流感诊断与预防上的应用及研究现状。     

人禽流感疾病流行病学特征及其防治措施

最近几年来,因禽流感病毒感染而死亡的患者逐年增多,人禽流感在世界各地的流行已给许多国家和地区造成了不同程度的经济损失。为了更好地防止该病毒在全世界大规模流行,研究者开始重视对禽流感病原学特性、临床症状、传播途径、治疗方法及预防措施等进行研究与总结。我们针对人禽流感的研究进展及其预防与控制措施做简要概述。     

Contrasting the epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of influenza spatial transmission

In the past decade, rapid increases in the availability of high-resolution molecular and epidemiological data, combined with developments in statistical and computational methods to simulate and infer migration patterns, have provided key insights into the spatial dynamics of influenza A viruses in humans. In this review, we contrast findings from epidemiological and molecular studies of influenza virus transmission at different spatial scales. We show that findings are broadly consistent in large-scale studies of inter-regional or inter-hemispheric spread in temperate regions, revealing intense epidemics associated with multiple viral introductions, followed by deep troughs driven by seasonal bottlenecks. However, aspects of the global transmission dynamics of influenza viruses are still debated, especially with respect to the existence of tropical source populations experiencing high levels of genetic diversity and the extent of prolonged viral persistence between epidemics. At the scale of a country or community, epidemiological studies have revealed spatially structured diffusion patterns in seasonal and pandemic outbreaks, which were not identified in molecular studies. We discuss the role of sampling issues in generating these conflicting results, and suggest strategies for future research that may help to fully integrate the epidemiological and evolutionary dynamics of influenza virus over space and time.     

水禽流感的流行特点及预防控制

禽流感已有100多年的历史,遍布世界许多国家和地区,不仅给养禽业造成了巨大的经济损失,而且已可直接传染给人,威胁人类公共卫生安全。众所周知,流感病毒（AIV）最复杂的生态系统在鸭、鹅等水禽,而水禽不仅是AIV的巨大贮存库和传染源,其本身也对AIV高度易感,可自然感染HPAIV,发病并死亡。随着禽流感威胁的不断升级,水禽流感的研究也不断深入。本文从水禽流感的流行病学和公共卫生学意义,以及在传播过程中的作用等方面作扼要综述,并对水禽流感的预防和控制提出一些建议。     

Relating Phylogenetic Trees to Transmission Trees of Infectious Disease Outbreaks

Transmission events are the fundamental building blocks of the dynamics of any infectious disease. Much about the epidemiology of a disease can be learned when these individual transmission events are known or can be estimated. Such estimations are difficult and generally feasible only when detailed epidemiological data are available. The genealogy estimated from genetic sequences of sampled pathogens is another rich source of information on transmission history. Optimal inference of transmission events calls for the combination of genetic data and epidemiological data into one joint analysis. A key difficulty is that the transmission tree, which describes the transmission events between infected hosts, differs from the phylogenetic tree, which describes the ancestral relationships between pathogens sampled from these hosts. The trees differ both in timing of the internal nodes and in topology. These differences become more pronounced when a higher fraction of infected hosts is sampled. We show how the phylogenetic tree of sampled pathogens is related to the transmission tree of an outbreak of an infectious disease, by the within-host dynamics of pathogens. We provide a statistical framework to infer key epidemiological and mutational parameters by simultaneously estimating the phylogenetic tree and the transmission tree. We test the approach using simulations and illustrate its use on an outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease. The approach unifies existing methods in the emerging field of phylodynamics with transmission tree reconstruction methods that are used in infectious disease epidemiology.     

Accuracy of estimated phylogenetic trees from molecular data

Summary The accuracies and efficiencies of four different methods for constructing phylogenetic trees from molecular data were examined by using computer simulation. The methods examined are UPGMA, Fitch and Margoliash's (1967) (F/M) method, Farris' (1972) method, and the modified Farris method (Tateno, Nei, and Tajima, this paper). In the computer simulation, eight OTUs (32 OTUs in one case) were assumed to evolve according to a given model tree, and the evolutionary change of a sequence of 300 nucleotides was followed. The nucleotide substitution in this sequence was assumed to occur following the Poisson distribution, negative binomial distribution or a model of temporally varying rate. Estimates of nucleotide substitutions (genetic distances) were then computed for all pairs of the nucleotide sequences that were generated at the end of the evolution considered, and from these estimates a phylogenetic tree was reconstructed and compared with the true model tree. The results of this comparison indicate that when the coefficient of variation of branch length is large the Farris and modified Farris methods tend to be better than UPGMA and the F/M method for obtaining a good topology. For estimating the number of nucleotide substitutions for each branch of the tree, however, the modified Farris method shows a better performance than the Farris method. When the coefficient of variation of branch length is small, however, UPGMA shows the best performance among the four methods examined. Nevertheless, any tree-making method is likely to make errors in obtaining the correct topology with a high probability, unless all branch lengths of the true tree are sufficiently long. It is also shown that the agreement between patristic and observed genetic distances is not a good indicator of the goodness of the tree obtained.     

2005～2006年湖南省人感染高致病性禽流感(H5N1)实验室诊断及病毒基因特性研究

为了对2005~2006年湖南省2例不明原因肺炎病例进行实验室诊断,确定病因以及对其进行病原学研究,采集病例呼吸道标本和血清标本,对呼吸道标本采用实时荧光定量逆转录聚合酶链式反应(Real-time RT-PCR)和逆转录聚合酶链式反应(RT-PCR)方法检测H5亚型禽流感病毒核酸,对血清标本采用血凝抑制试验检测特异性抗体,并对其中1例死亡病例(病例2)的肺穿刺物标本进行病毒分离,所获毒株予以测序及同源性分析。结果显示,2例病例H5亚型禽流感病毒核酸检测均为阳性,病例1恢复期血清H5N1特异性抗体阳性,并且较急性期血清呈4倍以上增长;病例2急性期血清特异性抗体阴性,2例均为人感染高致病性禽流感病毒(H5N1)确诊病例。从病例2分离得到毒株A/Hunan/1/2006,测序及分子特性分析表明,其8个基因片段均为禽源,且与湖南本地禽类分离的病毒相似,并未与人流感病毒发生基因重组或产生显著变异。     

Molecular genetic characterization of H5N1 influenza virus strains isolated from poultry in the Kurgan region in 2005

In the second half of 2005, a large-scale outbreak of influenza in poultry and wild birds was caused by a highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza virus in Russia. The level of pathogenicity is a polygenic trait, and most individual genes contribute to the influenza A virus pathogenicity in birds, animals, and humans. The full-length nucleotide sequences were determined for H5N1 strains isolated in the Kurgan region (Western Siberia). The structure of viral proteins was analyzed using the deduced amino acid sequences. The receptor-binding site of hemagglutinin (HA) in strains A/chicken/Kurgan/05/2005 and A/duck/Kurgan/08/2005 was typical for avian influenza viruses and contained Glu and Gly at positions 226 and 228, respectively. The structure of the basic amino acid cluster located within the HA cleavage site was identical in all isolates: QGERRRKKR. According to the neuraminidase structure, all H5N1 isolates from the Kurgan region were assigned to the Z genotype. Amino acid residues typical for the avian influenza virus were revealed in 30 out of 32 positions of M1, M2, NP, PA, and PB2, determining the host range specificity. One of the strains contained Lys at position 627 of PB2. Isolates from the Kurgan region were shown to have a remantadine-sensitive genotype. Both strains contained Glu at position 92 of NS1, indicating that the virus is interferon-resistant. Phylogenetic analysis related the Kurgan isolates to subclade 2 of clade 2 of highly pathogenic H5N1 influenza viruses.     

Genotyping and genetic diversity of Arcobacter butzleri by amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) analysis

AIMS: To investigate the potential of amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) profiling for genotyping Arcobacter butzleri and to obtain further data on the genetic diversity of this organism. METHODS AND RESULTS: Seventy-three isolates of Danish, British, Turkish, Swedish, Nigerian and North American origin from human infections, chickens, turkeys, ducks, sheep and poultry abbatoir effluent were studied by use of a protocol that involved stringent PCR amplification of fragments derived from digestion of genomic DNA with restriction enzymes BglII and Csp6I. The mean similarity value of duplicate profiles of 10 isolates was 91.15%, indicating the method to be reproducible. Numerical analysis of all 73 isolates distinguished 51 subtypes at the 91% similarity level, of which 39 comprised single strains. The remaining 34 isolates were distributed among 12 subtypes, each of which contained strains homogeneous with respect to their respective source of isolation. However, contemporaneous strains from the same source could also be distinguished. CONCLUSIONS: AFLP profiling is an effective method for typing the genetically diverse organism A. butzleri. SIGNIFICANCE AND IMPACT OF THE STUDY: The study represents a comprehensive analysis of the genetic diversity of A. butzleri by use of isolates from six countries spanning three continents and also shows that several distinct A. butzleri genotypes may be found in a given environment. AFLP profiling appears to have considerable potential for molecular epidemiological studies of this ubiquitous emerging pathogen that is implicated as a causative agent of both human and animal disease.     

Highly pathogenic avian influenza outbreak mitigated by seasonal low pathogenic strains: Insights from dynamic modeling

The spread of highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) H5N1 remains a threat for both wild and domestic bird populations, while low pathogenic avian influenza (LPAI) strains have been reported to induce partial immunity to HPAI in poultry and some wild birds inoculated with both HPAI and LPAI strains. Here, based on the reported data and experiments, we develop a two-strain avian influenza model to examine the extent to which this partial immunity observed at the individual level can affect the outcome of the outbreaks among migratory birds in the wild at the population level during different seasons. We find a distinct mitigating effect of LPAI on the death toll induced by HPAI strain, and this effect is particularly important for populations previously exposed to and recovered from LPAI. We further investigate the effect of the dominant mode of transmission of an HPAI strain on the outcome of the epidemic. Four combinations of contact based direct transmission and indirect fecal-to-oral (or environmental) routes are examined. For a given infection peak of HPAI, indirect fecal-to-oral transmission of HPAI can lead to a higher death toll than that associated with direct transmission. The mitigating effect of LPAI can, in turn, be dependent on the route of infection of HPAI.     

焦磷酸测序技术在禽流感病毒金刚烷胺耐药性检测中的应用

流感病毒M2蛋白五个关键位点氨基酸残基(第26、27、30、31和34位)中的任何一个发生突变都会导致抗流感病毒药物中金刚烷胺抗药性的产生。本研究利用焦磷酸测序技术对94株不同亚型禽流感病毒金刚烷胺耐药性分子决定区进行了鉴定,并进行抗药性分析。结果表明94株禽流感病毒中有81株M2基因存在金刚烷胺耐药性的分子标签,其余的13株根据分子标签判断为对金刚烷胺敏感。耐药性的分子标记存在V27I和S31N两种突变形式,其中绝大多数为S31N。     

光皮桦优树子代性状遗传变异及选择

在福建省选择101株光皮桦(Betula luminifera H. Winkl.)优树,利用其中55株优树的种子在福建省邵武卫闽林场开展子代测定分析. 结果表明, 光皮桦种内存在丰富的遗传变异, 优树子代间差异显著, 这些差异主要由遗传因素控制; 3 a生树高家系遗传力、单株遗传力分别为0.446和0.327, 胸径的家系遗传力和单株遗传力分别为 0.431和0.291;各生长性状与冠幅间存在紧密的相关性;以3a生树高为主要指标,从参试的家系中初步选出12个优良家系和31株优良个体,优良家系的树高和胸径的平均遗传增益分别为7.95%和11.87%;优良个体的树高和胸径的平均遗传增益分别高达26.60%和40.37%,选择效果非常明显.这些优良家系和个体可用作种子园建园材料或无性繁殖材料.     

Ecological aspects of algal infectious diseases

This study reports some epidemiological aspects of the infections of Mazzaella laminarioides by Endophyton sp. and Pleurocapsa sp., the organisms associated with the green patch and deformative diseases respectively.Infections affected an important segment of the host population and persisted throughout the year. The main infecting organism was Endophyton sp. Frequency, density and intensity index showed seasonal variations, with lower values in winter. It is suggested that tissue weakening and changes in the biomechanical properties of the infected individuals could be the responsible for this seasonal pattern of variation.This study demonstrates that, at the host population level, the two life history stages of M. laminarioides are susceptible to the pathogens. We also detected an association between reproduction of the host and infection, although the basis for it are unknown.The two pathogens showed different intra-frond distribution, with Endophyton sp. affecting preferentially the base of the frond. The spatial distribution within the beach was different for each pathogen. The main impact of Pleurocapsa sp. was recorded at the center, more protected sector of the beach.