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People, parasites, and plowshares
Dickson D. Despommier's vivid, visceral account of the biology, behavior, and history of parasites follows the interplay between these fascinating life forms and human society over thousands of years. Despommier focuses on long-term host-parasite associations, which have evolved to avoid or even subvert the human immune system. Some parasites do great damage to their hosts, while others have signed a kind of \"peace treaty\" in exchange for their long lives within them. Many parasites also practice clever survival strategies that medical scientists hope to mimic as they search for treatments for Crohn's disease, food allergies, type 1 diabetes, organ transplantation, and other medical challenges.
Despommier concentrates on particularly remarkable and often highly pathogenic organisms, describing their lifecycles and the mechanisms they use to avoid elimination. He details their attack and survival plans and the nature of the illnesses they cause in general terms, enabling readers of all backgrounds to steal a glimpse into the secret work of such effective invaders. He also points to the cultural contexts in which these parasites thrive and reviews the current treatments available to defeat them. Encouraging scientists to continue to study these organisms even if their threat is largely contained, Despommier shows how closer dissection of the substances parasites produce to alter our response to them could help unravel some of our most complex medical conundrums.
eBook
Microbial evolution and transitions along the parasite–mutualist continuum
Virtually all plants and animals, including humans, are home to symbiotic microorganisms. Symbiotic interactions can be neutral, harmful or have beneficial effects on the host organism. However, growing evidence suggests that microbial symbionts can evolve rapidly, resulting in drastic transitions along the parasite–mutualist continuum. In this Review, we integrate theoretical and empirical findings to discuss the mechanisms underpinning these evolutionary shifts, as well as the ecological drivers and why some host–microorganism interactions may be stuck at the end of the continuum. In addition to having biomedical consequences, understanding the dynamic life of microorganisms reveals how symbioses can shape an organism’s biology and the entire community, particularly in a changing world.Symbiotic interactions can be neutral, harmful or have beneficial effects for host organisms. In this Review, Drew, Stevens and King discuss the evolutionary transitions of host–microorganism symbioses along the parasite–mutualist continuum, the mechanisms underlying evolutionary changes, the selective pressures involved and common empirical approaches for studying them.
Journal Article
Extracellular Vesicle-Mediated Communication Within Host-Parasite Interactions
Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are small membrane-surrounded structures released by different kinds of cells (normal, diseased, and transformed cells)
and
that contain large amounts of important substances (such as lipids, proteins, metabolites, DNA, RNA, and non-coding RNA (ncRNA), including miRNA, lncRNA, tRNA, rRNA, snoRNA, and scaRNA) in an evolutionarily conserved manner. EVs, including exosomes, play a role in the transmission of information, and substances between cells that is increasingly being recognized as important. In some infectious diseases such as parasitic diseases, EVs have emerged as a ubiquitous mechanism for mediating communication during host-parasite interactions. EVs can enable multiple modes to transfer virulence factors and effector molecules from parasites to hosts, thereby regulating host gene expression, and immune responses and, consequently, mediating the pathogenic process, which has made us rethink our understanding of the host-parasite interface. Thus, here, we review the present findings regarding EVs (especially exosomes) and recognize the role of EVs in host-parasite interactions. We hope that a better understanding of the mechanisms of parasite-derived EVs may provide new insights for further diagnostic biomarker, vaccine, and therapeutic development.
Journal Article
biogeography of host-parasite interactions
This edited volume demonstrates how the latest developments in biogeography (for example in phylogenetics, macroecology, and geographic information systems) can be applied to studies in the evolutionary ecology of host-parasite interactions in order to integrate spatial patterns with ecological theory.
eBook
Ending the War Metaphor
Infectious diseases have existed longer than us, as long as us, or are relatively newer than us. It may be the case that a disease has existed for many, many years but has only recently begun affecting humans. At the turn of the century the number of deaths caused by infections in the United States had been falling steadily but since the '80s has seen an increase. In the past 30 years alone 37 new pathogens have been identified as human disease threats and 12% of known human pathogens have been classified as either emerging or remerging. Whatever the story, there is currently a \"war\" on infectious diseases. This war is simply the systematic search for the microbial \"cause\" of each disease, followed by the development of antimicrobial therapies.
The \"war\" on infectious diseases, however, must be revisited in order to develop a more realistic and detailed picture of the dynamic interactions among and between host organisms and their diverse populations of microbes. Only a fraction of these microbes are pathogens. Thus, in order to explore the crafting of a new metaphor for host-microbe relationships, and to consider how such a new perspective might inform and prioritize biomedical research, the Forum on Microbial Threats of the Institute of Medicine (IOM) convened the workshop, Ending the War Metaphor: The Changing Agenda for Unraveling the Host-Microbe Relationship on March 16-17, 2005.
Workshop participants examined knowledge and approaches to learning about the bacterial inhabitants of the human gut, the best known host-microbe system, as well as findings from studies of microbial communities associated with other mammals, fish, plants, soil, and insects. The perspective adopted by this workshop is one that recognizes the breadth and diversity of host-microbe relationships beyond those relative few that result in overt disease. Included in this summary are the reports and papers of individuals participating in the Forum as well as the views of the editors.
eBook
Monarch butterfly migration and parasite transmission in eastern North America
Seasonal migration occurs in many animal systems and is likely to influence interactions between animals and their parasites. Here, we focus on monarch butterflies (
Danaus plexippus
) and a protozoan parasite (
Ophryocystis elektroscirrha
) to investigate how host migration affects infectious disease processes. Previous work showed that parasite prevalence was lower among migratory than nonmigratory monarch populations; two explanations for this pattern are that (1) migration allows animals to periodically escape contaminated habitats (i.e., migratory escape), and (2) long-distance migration weeds out infected animals (i.e., migratory culling). We combined field-sampling and analysis of citizen science data to examine spatiotemporal trends of parasite prevalence and evaluate evidence for these two mechanisms. Analysis of within-breeding-season variation in eastern North America showed that parasite prevalence increased from early to late in the breeding season, consistent with the hypothesis of migratory escape. Prevalence was also positively related to monarch breeding activity, as indexed by larval density. Among adult monarchs captured at different points along the east coast fall migratory flyway, parasite prevalence declined as monarchs progressed southward, consistent with the hypothesis of migratory culling. Parasite prevalence was also lower among monarchs sampled at two overwintering sites in Mexico than among monarchs sampled during the summer breeding period. Collectively, these results indicate that seasonal migration can affect parasite transmission in wild animal populations, with implications for predicting disease risks for species with threatened migrations.
Journal Article