Most studies of bacterial pathogen populations have been based on isolates collected from individuals with disease, or their contacts, over short time periods. For commensal organisms that occasionally cause disease, such as Neisseria meningitidis, however, the analysis of isolates from long-term asymptomatic carriage is necessary to elucidate their evolution and population structure. Here, we use mathematical models to analyse the structuring and dynamics of three vaccine-candidate antigens among carried meningococcal isolates collected over nearly 30 years in the Czech Republic. The data indicate that stable combinations of antigenic alleles were maintained over this time period despite evidence for high rates of recombination, consistent with theoretical models in which strong immune selection can maintain non-overlapping combinations of antigenic determinants in the presence of recombination. We contrast this antigenic structure with the overlapping but relatively stable combinations of the housekeeping genes observed among the same isolates, and use a novel network approach to visualize these relationships.
- MeSH
- alely MeSH
- antigeny bakteriální genetika imunologie MeSH
- bakteriální proteiny genetika MeSH
- biologické modely MeSH
- genetická variace MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- meningokoková meningitida mikrobiologie MeSH
- molekulární evoluce * MeSH
- Neisseria meningitidis genetika imunologie MeSH
- poriny genetika imunologie MeSH
- přenašečství mikrobiologie MeSH
- proteiny vnější bakteriální membrány genetika imunologie MeSH
- rekombinace genetická MeSH
- selekce (genetika) MeSH
- Check Tag
- lidé MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- práce podpořená grantem MeSH
- Geografické názvy
- Česká republika MeSH
Neisseria meningitis is a human commensal bacterium that occasionally causes life-threatening disease. As with a number of other bacterial pathogens, meningococcal populations comprise distinct lineages, which persist over many decades and during global spread in the face of high rates of recombination. In addition, the propensity to cause invasive disease is associated with particular "hyperinvasive" lineages that coexist with less invasive lineages despite the fact that disease does not contribute to host-to-host transmission. Here, by combining a modeling approach with molecular epidemiological data from 1,108 meningococci isolated in the Czech Republic over 27 years, we show that interstrain competition, mediated by immune selection, can explain both the persistence of multiple discrete meningococcal lineages and the association of a subset of these with invasive disease. The model indicates that the combinations of allelic variants of housekeeping genes that define these lineages are associated with very small differences in transmission efficiency among hosts. These findings have general implications for the emergence of lineage structure and virulence in recombining bacterial populations.
- MeSH
- alely MeSH
- dítě MeSH
- dospělí MeSH
- genetická variace MeSH
- kojenec MeSH
- lidé středního věku MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- mladiství MeSH
- molekulární epidemiologie MeSH
- molekulární evoluce * MeSH
- Neisseria meningitidis klasifikace genetika izolace a purifikace patogenita MeSH
- předškolní dítě MeSH
- selekce (genetika) * MeSH
- senioři nad 80 let MeSH
- senioři MeSH
- virulence genetika MeSH
- Check Tag
- dítě MeSH
- dospělí MeSH
- kojenec MeSH
- lidé středního věku MeSH
- lidé MeSH
- mladiství MeSH
- mužské pohlaví MeSH
- předškolní dítě MeSH
- senioři nad 80 let MeSH
- senioři MeSH
- ženské pohlaví MeSH
- Publikační typ
- časopisecké články MeSH
- Geografické názvy
- Česká republika MeSH