Microbe-mediated host defence drives the evolution of reduced pathogen virulence

Suzanne A. Ford (), Damian Kao, David Williams and Kayla C. King ()
Additional contact information
Suzanne A. Ford: University of Oxford
Damian Kao: University of Oxford
David Williams: Centre for Genomic Research, Institute of Integrative Biology, University of Liverpool
Kayla C. King: University of Oxford

Nature Communications, 2016, vol. 7, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract Microbes that protect their hosts from pathogens are widespread in nature and are attractive disease control agents. Given that pathogen adaptation to barriers against infection can drive changes in pathogen virulence, ‘defensive microbes’ may shape disease severity. Here we show that co-evolving a microbe with host-protective properties (Enterococcus faecalis) and a pathogen (Staphylococcus aureus) within Caenorhabditis elegans hosts drives the evolution of reduced pathogen virulence as a by-product of adaptation to the defensive microbe. Using both genomic and phenotypic analyses, we discover that the production of fewer iron-scavenging siderophores by the pathogen reduces the fitness of the defensive microbe and underpins the decline in pathogen virulence. These data show that defensive microbes can shape the evolution of pathogen virulence and that the mechanism of pathogen resistance can determine the direction of virulence evolution.

Date: 2016
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms13430 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:7:y:2016:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms13430

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms13430

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().