Article
Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science
Milan Miljevic, Borislav Cabrilo, Ivana Budinski, Marija Rajicic, Branka Bajic, Olivera Bjelic-Cabrilo, Jelena Blagojevic
Summary: This study analyzed intestinal nematodes in three small rodent species and found that animals in better condition had higher parasite species richness. In A. flavicollis, females had more parasite species than males of the same body condition. Contrary to expectations, spleen mass did not reflect changes in parasitism level, but in M. glareolus, a smaller spleen was related to a higher parasite load.
Article
Ecology
Carmen K. Blubaugh, Cami R. Jones, Chloe Josefson, Glen A. Scoles, William E. Snyder, Jeb P. Owen
Summary: Diet composition has an impact on animals' ability to resist parasites and recover from stress. This study focused on how plant/prey mixing in diets influenced resistance and body condition in omnivorous deer mice infested with Rocky Mountain wood ticks. The findings suggest that a diverse nutritional landscape is crucial for omnivores to withstand infection and immune stressors in their environments.
JOURNAL OF ANIMAL ECOLOGY
(2023)
Review
Cell Biology
Jin Kyung Kim, Prashanta Silwal, Eun-Kyeong Jo
Summary: In this review, the roles of SIRT1 and its regulatory mechanisms during bacterial, viral, and parasitic infections are summarized. Potential antimicrobial treatments using SIRT1 modulators are also discussed. Understanding the function of SIRT1 in balancing immune homeostasis is of great importance for the development of new therapeutics for the treatment of infection and inflammatory disease.
Article
Biology
Adam Z. Z. Hasik, Adam M. M. Siepielski
Summary: This study conducted a meta-analysis to examine the effects of parasites on host reproduction, specifically on mean fitness and variance in reproduction outcomes. The results showed that parasites severely reduced mean fitness of hosts, leading to decreased fecundity, viability, and mating success. Parasite infection also increased variance in reproduction, particularly in fecundity and offspring viability. Surprisingly, similar effects on viability were observed when either the male or female was parasitized.
Article
Microbiology
Maria Razzauti, Guillaume Castel, Jean-Francois Cosson
Summary: The study revealed that the genetic diversity of bank voles and PUUV is positively correlated with forest coverage and contiguity of habitats. While the genetic diversity of bank voles was weakly structured in space, that of PUUV showed strong structuring, which has important implications for understanding the distribution and epidemiology of PUUV.
Article
Entomology
Rubens H. Kanno, Aline S. Guidolin, Fernando E. O. Padovez, Juliana G. Rodrigues, Celso Omoto
Summary: Insecticide resistance is often associated with fitness costs, which are influenced by environmental and ecological factors. This study investigated how host plants can affect the fitness costs of insecticide resistance in Spodoptera frugiperda. The results showed that the fitness costs of spinetoram resistance in S. frugiperda depend on the host plants that S. frugiperda larvae fed on.
JOURNAL OF PEST SCIENCE
(2023)
Article
Virology
Renuka E. Joseph, Nadya Urakova, Kristine L. Werling, Hillery C. Metz, Kaylee Montanari, Jason L. Rasgon
Summary: Eilat virus (EILV) was found to be most competent in Culex tarsalis mosquitoes and transmitted through saliva. This suggests that EILV could be developed as a tool to target pathogens transmitted by Culex tarsalis mosquitoes.
JOURNAL OF VIROLOGY
(2023)
Article
Biology
Emily R. Ebel, Frans A. Kuypers, Carrie Lin, Dmitri A. Petrov, Elizabeth S. Egan
Summary: The study on 121 healthy donors of African ancestry found that various genes and phenotypes related to red blood cell variation were closely associated with the adaptability of Plasmodium falciparum within red blood cells, indicating globally widespread variations play a role in modulating parasite fitness.
Review
Microbiology
Miaomiao Zhang, Mingbin Liu, Shimeng Bai, Chen Zhao, Zejun Li, Jianqing Xu, Xiaoyan Zhang
Summary: Understanding how viruses break the species barrier is crucial for monitoring and preventing influenza outbreaks. Studies have shown that the interaction between host and viral factors plays a key role in the evolution of IAVs.
FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY
(2021)
Review
Microbiology
Michael S. Overton, Robert D. Manuel, C. Martin Lawrence, Jamie C. Snyder
Summary: Viruses play a crucial role in the evolution and ecology of cellular life. Studying viruses has greatly advanced our understanding of various aspects of living systems. Recent research on archaeal viruses has produced intriguing results, revealing their interactions with cells.
FRONTIERS IN MICROBIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Evolutionary Biology
Frederic Douhard, Andrea B. Doeschl-Wilson, Alexander Corbishley, Adam D. Hayward, Didier Marcon, Jean-Louis Weisbecker, Sophie Aguerre, Lea Bordes, Philippe Jacquiet, Tom N. McNeilly, Guillaume Salle, Carole Moreno-Romieux
Summary: There are trade-offs between host resistance to parasites and host growth or reproduction due to limited allocation of resources. This study examined the nutritional costs of resistance by selecting sheep with different resistance levels to a common blood-feeding parasite. The study found that high or low resistance had different effects on condition traits and infection traits, particularly during the periparturient period. Furthermore, a cost of resistance on body weight was detected during the first reproduction of ewes.
EVOLUTIONARY APPLICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Jian Xu, Takafumi Nakanishi, Tatsuya Kato, Enoch Y. Park
Summary: The Baculovirus expression vector system (BEVS) is an effective protein expression system and has been used to engineer important enzymes and vaccines. The use of fusion tags for protein purification can negatively affect the biological activity of the target protein. This study validated the cleavage activity of the human rhinoviruses (HRV) 3C protease in both Escherichia coli and silkworm-BEVS systems. The findings demonstrate the successful establishment of a tag-free protein engineering platform using a coinfection-based recognition-and-reaction BEVS system.
BIOSCIENCE REPORTS
(2022)
Review
Immunology
Brian V. Tsu, Elizabeth J. Fay, Katelyn T. Nguyen, Miles R. Corley, Bindhu Hosuru, Viviana A. Dominguez, Matthew D. Daugherty
Summary: Pathogens encode proteases to counteract the host immune system, leading to evolutionary conflicts between viral proteases and host factors. This results in diverse protease-host interactions influencing host range, zoonotic potential, and pathogenicity of viral infection.
FRONTIERS IN IMMUNOLOGY
(2021)
Article
Microbiology
Shiqin Li, Wenjuan Yi, Siyi Chen, Chengshu Wang
Summary: Fungal entomopathogens, mainly facultative parasites, are important in controlling insect populations in nature. Competition between different species such as Metarhizium robertsii and Beauveria bassiana for insect hosts or niches was studied, revealing that co-infection did not significantly increase virulence and M. robertsii was more effective in killing and infecting insects. Additionally, while B. bassiana could outcompete M. robertsii in liquid medium, parasexual recombination between compatible strains occurred after coinfection, raising questions about the efficacy of mixed use of fungal parasites for insect pest control.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
David M. Rand, Joaquin C. B. Nunez, Shawn Williams, Stephen Rong, John T. Burley, Kimberly B. Neil, Adam N. Spierer, Wilson McKerrow, David S. Johnson, Yevgeniy Raynes, Thomas J. Fayton, Nicholas Skvir, David A. Ferranti, Maya Greenhill Zeff, Amanda Lyons, Naima Okami, David M. Morgan, Kealohanuiopuna Kinney, Bianca R. P. Brown, Anne E. Giblin, Zoe G. Cardon
Summary: Manipulation of host phenotypes by parasites is a strategy for enhancing parasite transmission, and this study found that trematode infection alters the gene expression of its amphipod host, leading to changes in coloration, behavior and immune responses. The study provides new genomic tools and transcriptomic analyses to understand how parasites manipulate host phenotypes.