Emerging infectious diseases and animal social systems

Emerging infectious diseases threaten a wide diversity of animals, and important questions remain concerning disease emergence in socially structured populations. We developed a spatially explicit simulation model to investigate whether—and under what conditions—disease-related mortality can impact rates of pathogen spread in populations of polygynous groups. Specifically, we investigated whether pathogen-mediated dispersal (PMD) can occur when females disperse after the resident male dies from disease, thus carrying infections to new groups. We also examined the effects of incubation period and virulence, host mortality and rates of background dispersal, and we used the model to investigate the spread of the virus responsible for Ebola hemorrhagic fever, which currently is devastating African ape populations. Output was analyzed using regression trees, which enable exploration of hierarchical and non-linear relationships. Analyses revealed that the incidence of disease in single-male (polygynous) groups was significantly greater for those groups containing an average of more than six females, while the total number of infected hosts in the population was most sensitive to the number of females per group. Thus, as expected, PMD occurs in polygynous groups and its effects increase as harem size (the number of females) increases. Simulation output further indicated that population-level effects of Ebola are likely to differ among multi-male–multi-female chimpanzees and polygynous gorillas, with larger overall numbers of chimpanzees infected, but more gorilla groups becoming infected due to increased dispersal when the resident male dies. Collectively, our results highlight the importance of social system on the spread of disease in wild mammals.     

Characteristics of structural proteins of infectious flacherie virus from the silkworm, Bombyx mori

Structural proteins and the characteristics of infectious flacherie virus (IFV) purified from the silkworm, Bombyx mori, are described. The purified IFV had four major structural proteins, which were detected only in high concentration gels of sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis, and a few minor ones. Molecular weights of the major proteins were 35,200 (VP 1), 33,000 (VP 2), 31,200 (VP 3), and 11,600 (VP 4), and numbers per virion were 62, 57, 54, and 31, respectively. Amino acid compositions of VP 1, VP 2, and VP 3 were similar to each other but that of VP 4 was somewhat different. By isoelectric focusing and two-dimensional electrophoresis, high resolution of the structural proteins was obtained with silver staining. The isoelectric points of the four major proteins were determined as 7.7(VP 1), 6.7(VP 2), 4.8(VP 3), and 5.5(VP 4). This work is the first report on insect picornaviruses that presents some discriminative properties of each viral protein that was compared to those of mammalian picornaviruses.     

Integrating sample similarities into latent class analysis: a tree-structured shrinkage approach

This paper is concerned with using multivariate binary observations to estimate the probabilities of unobserved classes with scientific meanings. We focus on the setting where additional information about sample similarities is available and represented by a rooted weighted tree. Every leaf in the given tree contains multiple samples. Shorter distances over the tree between the leaves indicate a priori higher similarity in class probability vectors. We propose a novel data integrative extension to classical latent class models with tree-structured shrinkage. The proposed approach enables (1) borrowing of information across leaves, (2) estimating data-driven leaf groups with distinct vectors of class probabilities, and (3) individual-level probabilistic class assignment given the observed multivariate binary measurements. We derive and implement a scalable posterior inference algorithm in a variational Bayes framework. Extensive simulations show more accurate estimation of class probabilities than alternatives that suboptimally use the additional sample similarity information. A zoonotic infectious disease application is used to illustrate the proposed approach. The paper concludes by a brief discussion on model limitations and extensions.     

Populations and infectious diseases: Dynamics and evolution

The host-parasite or host-pathogen system was analyzed from dynamical and evolutionary viewpoints using simple mathematical models incorporating vertical transmission, immunity and its loss. We first analyzed a model without density regulation of host population. In the analysis on dynamics, the condition for the pathogen to work as a density regulating factor was obtained. In the analysis on evolution, criteria for the evolution of host and pathogen were proposed. These criteria implies that the evolution of hosts should result in an increase in infected host density, whereas the evolution of pathogens a decrease in susceptible host density. The direction of evolution at some parameters of host and that of pathogen were examined when the parameters were independently and freely changeable. Among the parameters, only reduction in additional mortality due to infection was the evolutionary trend common to both host and pathogen. In all the other parameters examined, trend of evolution predicted in host is reversed in pathogen. We then analyzed whether the obtained criteria still hold in models with density regulation of hosts. Using randomly generated parameter sets, we obtained the result that the criteria should hold very likely though they do not always hold. We discussed evolution of virulence when there is a constraint between the traits.     

Whitening,thallus decay and fragmentation in Gracilaria chilensis associated with an endophytic amoeba

Whitening of Gracilaria chilensis, accompanied by tissue softening and thallus fragmentation, was found to be associated with the presence of an endophytic amoeba. Although the symptoms developed originally in green mutant thalli, subsequent infections in the laboratory also affected normal, wild-type G. chilensis. Ultrastructural evidence indicates that the amoebae perforate the host cell walls of both cortical and medullary cells and digest their protoplasm. Feeding by the amoeba appears to involve both phagocytosis and enzymatic digestion of the host tissue. Destruction of the host tissue resulted in large cavities first, followed by thallus fragmentation. No other organism was found during the early stages of thallus invasion by the amoeba, although bacteria may appear once the amoeba reaches the inner tissues of the host.     

Integral equation models for endemic infectious diseases

Summary Endemic infectious diseases for which infection confers permanent immunity are described by a system of nonlinear Volterra integral equations of convolution type. These constant-parameter models include vital dynamics (births and deaths), immunization and distributed infectious period. The models are shown to be well posed, the threshold criteria are determined and the asymptotic behavior is analysed. It is concluded that distributed delays do not change the thresholds and the asymptotic behaviors of the models.This work was partially supported by NIH Grant AI 13233.     

Effect of Exposure Period and Algal Concentration on the Frequency of Infection of Aposymbiotic Ciliates by Symbiotic Algae from Paramecium bursaria

The effect of exposure period and concentration of algae on the frequency of infection of aposymbiotic ciliates by algae obtained from the same clone of Paramecium bursaria syngen 2, was studied. The frequency of infection was roughly proportional to the algal concentration and to the exposure time of ciliates to algae. The relationship of algal concentration to infection frequency closely fitted the Poisson distribution curve for N = 1, suggesting that the minimum number of algae required to infect a single ciliate is 1. However, the data also strongly suggested that the average number of algae required to initiate infection of an average ciliate was ? 1,000. Three possible resolutions of this situation are: (a) the selection by the ciliate of a rare infective variant from a heterogeneous population: (b) the rare escape of an alga from digestion by the ciliate; and (c) the requirement for a large number of algae-ciliate contacts to induce susceptibility in the ciliate. Splitting the exposure of ciliates to algae into 2 periods of 0.5 h, separated by 5 h in the absence of algae, produced a much higher frequency of infection than a single l-h exposure, supporting the suggestion that the large number of algae is required to induce susceptibility in the ciliate which can then be infected by as few as a single algal cell.     

猪圆环病毒2型流行株的分离及其感染性克隆的构建

【目的】通过分离一株猪圆环病毒2型(PCV2)流行毒株,并构建其感染性克隆,为研究PCV2基因功能提供操作平台。【方法】通过PCR方法,从疑似患断奶仔猪多系统衰竭综合症(PMWS)的仔猪淋巴结中鉴定为猪圆环病毒(Porcine circovirus,PCV)2型阳性。把阳性病料接种PK-15细胞传代培养,在培养物中扩增出PCV2的全基因序列。对扩增出的全序列进行序列测定,并与GenBank中公布的5株广东PCV2分离株(GD-pz、GD-gj、GD-jm、GD-ss和GD-sz)进行同源性分析。通过EcoRⅠ和SalⅠ将PCV2全基因组序列克隆进pUC18载体中,获得含PCV2 GD-zq株全基因组单拷贝的重组质粒pPCV2-GD-zq,再通过SalⅠ和HindⅢ把另一个全长拷贝克隆进pPCV2-GD-zq质粒中,使PCV2 GD-zq株基因组DNA以头尾相接的双重复方式克隆进pUC18载体中,获得重组质粒pPCV2-2GD-zq。将pPCV2-2GD-zq DNA纯化和定量后转染PK-15细胞,拯救PCV2 GD-zq病毒。【结果】从PMWS感染的猪淋巴结中分离到了一株PCV2,命名为GD-zq株;序列分析结果显示,GD-zq株全基因组为1 767 bp,与GenBank中公布的5株广东PCV2分离株ORF1核苷酸一致性为97.1%-99.7%,编码氨基酸一致性为98.7%-100%;ORF2核苷酸一致性为93.2%-99.6%,编码氨基酸一致性为92.3%-99.1%;全基因一致性为96.0%-99.6%。pPCV2-2GD-zq质粒转染PK-15细胞后,其通过间接免疫荧光实验(IFA)能从转染细胞及其传代细胞中,检测到拯救出的病毒。【结论】分离了一株PCV2广东株GD-zq,成功构建了PCV2 GD-zq株的感染性克隆。