Although a variety of virus species can infect amphibians, diseases caused by ranaviruses ([RVs]; Iridoviridae) have become prominent, and are a major concern for biodiversity, agriculture and international trade. The relatively recent and rapid increase in prevalence of RV infections, the wide range of host species infected by RVs, the variability in host resistance among population of the sam...

One major question in studies on the ecology and evolution of infectious diseases is whether enhanced host resistance will drive the evolution of more virulent parasites. To date, theory, laboratory studies, and field studies have all shown an association between increased host resistance and higher frequencies of virulent strains, suggesting that enhanced host immunity could have the undesirab...

The introduction of chemotherapeutic agents, synthetic as well as those of natural origin, the antibiotics, has greatly altered the treatment and prognosis of infectious diseases. Despite these great advances in therapy, it must be borne in mind that many infections cannot be satisfactorily treated. In this group belong such diseases as the common cold, sinusitis, brucellosis, poliomyelitis, an...

Despite traditional disease control measures, losses attributable to infectious diseases continue to impede the livestock industries. An alternative approach to this problem is genetic disease resistance involving both immune and non-immune mechanisms, which is the inherent capacity of a previously unexposed animal to resist disease when challenged by pathogens. Although the nurturing environme...

Dietary characteristics can modulate a bird's susceptibility to infectious challenges and subtle influences due to the level of nutrients or the types of ingredients may at times be of critical importance. This review considers seven mechanisms for nutritional modulation of resistance to infectious disease in poultry. 1) Nutrition may impact the development of the immune system, both in ovo and...

background: in an effort to understand what limits the virulence of malaria para­sites in relation to the host genetic and immunogenic background, we investi­gated the possibility that the parasite and host genotype crossover interac­tions constrain virulence. methods: two groups of mice from different genotypes were used (c57bl/6 (b6) and dba/2 mice). the mice were infected with a virulent par...

This is a very stimulating book, since in it the author discusses infectious processes in biochemical terms. He emphasizes not only what can be done to develop our understanding of microbial disease and host resistance mechanisms, but also shows how meagre our knowledge in this field really is. Early in the book Dubos points out that current infectious disease literature has "a quaint mid-ninet...

Wolbachia are maternally transmitted symbiotic bacteria that can spread within insect populations because of their unique ability to manipulate host reproduction. When introduced to nonnative mosquito hosts, Wolbachia induce resistance to a number of human pathogens, including dengue virus (DENV), Plasmodium, and filarial nematodes, but the molecular mechanism involved is unclear. In this study...

A polymorphism modulating innate immunity signal transduction has recently been shown to influence human susceptibility to many different infections, providing one more indication of the potential of host genetics to reveal physiological pathways and mechanisms that influence resistance to infectious diseases.