Search results for "PATHOGENS"
showing 4 items of 214 documents
Bacteriophage Adherence to Mucus Mediates Preventive Protection against Pathogenic Bacteria
2019
The mucosal surfaces of animals are habitat for microbes, including viruses. Bacteriophages—viruses that infect bacteria—were shown to be able to bind to mucus. This may result in a symbiotic relationship in which phages find bacterial hosts to infect, protecting the mucus-producing animal from bacterial infections in the process. Here, we studied phage binding on mucus and the effect of mucin on phage-bacterium interactions. The significance of our research is in showing that phage adhesion to mucus results in preventive protection against bacterial infections, which will serve as basis for the development of prophylactic phage therapy approaches. Besides, we also reveal that exposure to m…
Eco-epidemiology of tick- and rodent-borne pathogens in boreal forests
2017
Infectious diseases are amongst the ten major causes of human mortality worldwide, 60% of them being animal-borne. Variations of abiotic and biotic conditions are likely to modify the transmission of parasites and pathogens within reservoir species, and, as a consequence, alter the zoonotic risk for human. My thesis aims at elucidating the dynamics and mechanisms of the maintenance of ticks, tick-borne pathogens (TBPs) and the Puumala hantavirus (PUUV) in the reservoir host, the bank vole (Myodes glareolus, BV). In Northern Europe, tick-borne diseases are growing in importance to human because of the latitudinal expansion of the tick Ixodes ricinus. Field monitoring revealed that I. ricinus…
Characterizing the bacterial fish pathogen Flavobacterium columnare, and some factors affecting its pathogenicity
2010
Flavobacterium columnare is a bacterial pathogen of fresh water fish causing lethal columnaris disease worldwide. At Finnish fish farms, columnaris disease has occurred since the early 1980s, and is a serious problem in salmonid farming in Finland. Currently, the only effective treatment is with antibiotics. Factors related to the pathogenicity of F. columnare, transmission of columnaris disease and the immunity of salmonids to columnaris infections are poorly known. F. columnare strains isolated from Finnish fish farms were characterized geno- and phenotypically, virulence and transmission experiments were conducted, and the efficacy of two immunostimulants against columnaris infections in…
Infection-induced chromatin modifications facilitate translocation of herpes simplex virus capsids to the inner nuclear membrane
2021
Herpes simplex virus capsids are assembled and packaged in the nucleus and move by diffusion through the nucleoplasm to the nuclear envelope for egress. Analyzing their motion provides conclusions not only on capsid transport but also on the properties of the nuclear environment during infection. We utilized live-cell imaging and single-particle tracking to characterize capsid motion relative to the host chromatin. The data indicate that as the chromatin was marginalized toward the nuclear envelope it presented a restrictive barrier to the capsids. However, later in infection this barrier became more permissive and the probability of capsids to enter the chromatin increased. Thus, although …