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The proportional lack of archaeal pathogens: Do viruses/phages hold the key?

Although Archaea inhabit the human body and possess some characteristics of pathogens, there is a notable lack of pathogenic archaeal species identified to date. We hypothesize that the scarcity of disease-causing Archaea is due, in part, to mutually-exclusive phage and virus populations infecting B...

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Autores principales: Gill, Erin E, Brinkman, Fiona S L
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: WILEY-VCH Verlag 2011
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3504072/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21328413
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bies.201000091
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author Gill, Erin E
Brinkman, Fiona S L
author_facet Gill, Erin E
Brinkman, Fiona S L
author_sort Gill, Erin E
collection PubMed
description Although Archaea inhabit the human body and possess some characteristics of pathogens, there is a notable lack of pathogenic archaeal species identified to date. We hypothesize that the scarcity of disease-causing Archaea is due, in part, to mutually-exclusive phage and virus populations infecting Bacteria and Archaea, coupled with an association of bacterial virulence factors with phages or mobile elements. The ability of bacterial phages to infect Bacteria and then use them as a vehicle to infect eukaryotes may be difficult for archaeal viruses to evolve independently. Differences in extracellular structures between Bacteria and Archaea would make adsorption of bacterial phage particles onto Archaea (i.e. horizontal transfer of virulence) exceedingly hard. If phage and virus populations are indeed exclusive to their respective host Domains, this has important implications for both the evolution of pathogens and approaches to infectious disease control.
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spelling pubmed-35040722012-11-27 The proportional lack of archaeal pathogens: Do viruses/phages hold the key? Gill, Erin E Brinkman, Fiona S L Bioessays Insights & Perspectives Although Archaea inhabit the human body and possess some characteristics of pathogens, there is a notable lack of pathogenic archaeal species identified to date. We hypothesize that the scarcity of disease-causing Archaea is due, in part, to mutually-exclusive phage and virus populations infecting Bacteria and Archaea, coupled with an association of bacterial virulence factors with phages or mobile elements. The ability of bacterial phages to infect Bacteria and then use them as a vehicle to infect eukaryotes may be difficult for archaeal viruses to evolve independently. Differences in extracellular structures between Bacteria and Archaea would make adsorption of bacterial phage particles onto Archaea (i.e. horizontal transfer of virulence) exceedingly hard. If phage and virus populations are indeed exclusive to their respective host Domains, this has important implications for both the evolution of pathogens and approaches to infectious disease control. WILEY-VCH Verlag 2011-04 2011-02-15 /pmc/articles/PMC3504072/ /pubmed/21328413 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bies.201000091 Text en Copyright © 2011 WILEY Periodicals, Inc. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ Re-use of this article is permitted in accordance with the Creative Commons Deed, Attribution 2.5, which does not permit commercial exploitation.
spellingShingle Insights & Perspectives
Gill, Erin E
Brinkman, Fiona S L
The proportional lack of archaeal pathogens: Do viruses/phages hold the key?
title The proportional lack of archaeal pathogens: Do viruses/phages hold the key?
title_full The proportional lack of archaeal pathogens: Do viruses/phages hold the key?
title_fullStr The proportional lack of archaeal pathogens: Do viruses/phages hold the key?
title_full_unstemmed The proportional lack of archaeal pathogens: Do viruses/phages hold the key?
title_short The proportional lack of archaeal pathogens: Do viruses/phages hold the key?
title_sort proportional lack of archaeal pathogens: do viruses/phages hold the key?
topic Insights & Perspectives
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3504072/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21328413
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bies.201000091
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