Different food sources elicit fast changes to bacterial virulence

Biology Letters
Tarmo KetolaJohanna Mappes

Abstract

Environmentally transmitted, opportunistic bacterial pathogens have a life cycle that alternates between hosts and environmental reservoirs. Resources are often scarce and fluctuating in the outside-host environment, whereas overcoming the host immune system could allow pathogens to establish a new, resource abundant and stable niche within the host. We tested if short-term exposure to different outside-host resource types and concentrations affect Serratia marcescens-(bacterium)'s virulence in Galleria mellonella (moth). As expected, virulence was mostly dictated by the bacterial dose, but we also found a clear increase in virulence when the bacterium had inhabited a low (versus high) resource concentration, or animal-based (versus plant-based) resources for 48 h prior to injection. The results suggest that temporal changes in pathogen's resource environment can induce very rapid changes in virulence and affect infection severity. Such changes could also play an important role in shifts from environmental lifestyle to pathogenicity or switches in host range and have implications for the management of opportunistic pathogens and disease outbreaks.

Associated Datasets

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Citations

Mar 5, 2016·Proceedings. Biological Sciences·Lotta-Riina SundbergJohanna Mappes
May 19, 2017·Evolutionary Applications·Hanna KinnulaLotta-Riina Sundberg
Sep 28, 2017·BMC Microbiology·Karoline ValsethThomas H A Haverkamp
Aug 26, 2019·Comparative Immunology, Microbiology and Infectious Diseases·Juliana Marzari RossatoJoão Batista Teixeira da Rocha

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