TY - JOUR
T1 - Parasite-Mediated Anorexia and Nutrition Modulate Virulence Evolution
AU - Hite, Jessica L.
AU - Cressler, Clayton E.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors thank the Division of Ecoimmunology and Disease Ecology, Division of Comparative Endocrinology, Division of Animal Behavior, and Division of Ecology and Evolution of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology as well as the Macroecology of Infectious Disease Research Coordination Network funded by the National Science Foundation [NSF DEB 1316223] for supporting the symposium “The Scale of Sickness: How Immune Variation across Space and Species Affects Infectious Disease Dynamics” financially.
Funding Information:
J.L.H. was supported by the National Institute Of General Medical Sciences of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number F32GM128246. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health. J.L.H. and C.E.C. conceived and implemented the study. J.L.H. wrote the first draft of the manuscript. C.E.C. contributed to revisions.
Funding Information:
This work was funded by the National Institutes of Health [F32GM12846].
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019 The Author(s) 2019. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology. All rights reserved.
PY - 2019/11/1
Y1 - 2019/11/1
N2 - Temporary but substantial reductions in voluntary food intake routinely accompany parasite infection in hosts ranging from insects to humans. This "parasite-mediated anorexia" drives dynamic nutrient-dependent feedbacks within and among hosts, which should alter the fitness of both hosts and parasites. Yet, few studies have examined the evolutionary and epidemiological consequences of this ubiquitous but overlooked component of infection. Moreover, numerous biomedical, veterinary, and farming practices (e.g., rapid biomass production via high-calorie or high-fat diets, low-level antibiotics to promote growth, nutritional supplementation, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like Ibuprofen) directly or indirectly alter the magnitude of host anorexia - while also controlling host diet and therefore the nutrients available to hosts and parasites. Here, we show that anorexia can enhance or diminish disease severity, depending on whether the current dietary context provides nutrients that bolster or inhibit immune function. Feedbacks driven by nutrition-mediated competition between host immune function and parasite production can create a unimodal relationship between anorexia and parasite fitness. Subsequently, depending on the host's diet, medical or husbandry practices that suppress anorexia could backfire, and inadvertently select for more virulent parasites and larger epidemics. These findings carry implications for the development of integrated treatment programs that consider links between host feeding behavior, nutrition, and disease severity.
AB - Temporary but substantial reductions in voluntary food intake routinely accompany parasite infection in hosts ranging from insects to humans. This "parasite-mediated anorexia" drives dynamic nutrient-dependent feedbacks within and among hosts, which should alter the fitness of both hosts and parasites. Yet, few studies have examined the evolutionary and epidemiological consequences of this ubiquitous but overlooked component of infection. Moreover, numerous biomedical, veterinary, and farming practices (e.g., rapid biomass production via high-calorie or high-fat diets, low-level antibiotics to promote growth, nutritional supplementation, nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs like Ibuprofen) directly or indirectly alter the magnitude of host anorexia - while also controlling host diet and therefore the nutrients available to hosts and parasites. Here, we show that anorexia can enhance or diminish disease severity, depending on whether the current dietary context provides nutrients that bolster or inhibit immune function. Feedbacks driven by nutrition-mediated competition between host immune function and parasite production can create a unimodal relationship between anorexia and parasite fitness. Subsequently, depending on the host's diet, medical or husbandry practices that suppress anorexia could backfire, and inadvertently select for more virulent parasites and larger epidemics. These findings carry implications for the development of integrated treatment programs that consider links between host feeding behavior, nutrition, and disease severity.
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U2 - 10.1093/icb/icz100
DO - 10.1093/icb/icz100
M3 - Article
C2 - 31187120
AN - SCOPUS:85075805324
SN - 1540-7063
VL - 59
SP - 1264
EP - 1274
JO - Integrative and Comparative Biology
JF - Integrative and Comparative Biology
IS - 5
ER -