Search results for "taudinaiheuttajat"
showing 10 items of 33 documents
Broad thermal tolerance is negatively correlated with virulence in an opportunistic bacterial pathogen
2018
Predicting the effects of global increase in temperatures on disease virulence is challenging, especially for environmental opportunistic bacteria, because pathogen fitness may be differentially affected by temperature within and outside host environment. So far, there is very little empirical evidence on the connections between optimal temperature range and virulence in environmentally growing pathogens. Here, we explored whether the virulence of an environmentally growing opportunistic fish pathogen, Flavobacterium columnare, is malleable to evolutionary changes via correlated selection on thermal tolerance. To this end, we experimentally quantified the thermal performance curves (TPCs) f…
The effects of different combinations of fixed and moving bed bioreactors on rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) growth and health, water quality and…
2019
Abstract The effect of bioreactor design on nitrification efficiency has been well studied, but less is known about the overall impacts on water quality. Besides nitrification, submerged fixed bed bioreactors (FBBR) trap fine solid particles, whereas moving bed bioreactors (MBBR) grind solids, possibly increasing solids and particle accumulation in the system. In this experiment, the effects of different combinations of fixed bed and moving bed bioreactors on water quality, solids removal, particle size distribution, fish health based on histopathological changes and nitrification efficiency were studied in laboratory scale recirculating aquaculture systems (RAS) with rainbow trout (Oncorhy…
Effect of resource availability on evolution of virulence and competition in an environmentally transmitted pathogen
2018
Understanding ecological and epidemiological factors driving pathogen evolution in contemporary time scales is a major challenge in modern health management. Pathogens that replicate outside the hosts are subject to selection imposed by ambient environmental conditions. Increased nutrient levels could increase pathogen virulence by pre-adapting for efficient use of resources upon contact to a nutrient rich host or by favouring transmission of fast-growing virulent strains. We measured changes in virulence and competition in Flavobacterium columnare, a bacterial pathogen of freshwater fish, under high and low nutrient levels. To test competition between strains in genotype mixtures, we devel…
Sympatric Ixodes-tick species: pattern of distribution and pathogen transmission within wild rodent populations
2018
AbstractThe generalist tick Ixodes ricinus is the most important vector for tick-borne pathogens (TBP), including Borrelia burgdorferi sensu lato, in Europe. However, the involvement of other sympatric Ixodes ticks, such as the specialist vole tick I. trianguliceps, in the enzootic circulations of TBP remains unclear. We studied the distribution of I. ricinus and I. trianguliceps in Central Finland and estimated the TBP infection likelihood in the most common rodent host in relation with the abundance of the two tick species. Ixodes trianguliceps was encountered in all 16 study sites whereas I. ricinus was frequently observed only at a quarter of the study sites. The abundance of I. ricinus…
Monitoring of ticks and tick-borne pathogens through a nationwide research station network in Finland.
2020
In 2015 a long-term, nationwide tick and tick-borne pathogen (TBP) monitoring project was started by the Finnish Tick Project and the Finnish Research Station network (RESTAT), with the goal of producing temporally and geographically extensive data regarding exophilic ticks in Finland. In the current study, we present results from the first four years of this collaboration. Ticks were collected by cloth dragging from 11 research stations across Finland in May September 2015-2018 (2012-2018 in Seili). Collected ticks were screened for twelve different pathogens by qPCR: Borrelia afzelii, Borrelia garinii, Borrelia valaisiana, Borrelia burgdorferi sensu stricto, Borrelia miyamotoi, Babesia sp…
Predicting habitat suitability for Ixodes ricinus and Ixodes persulcatus ticks in Finland
2022
AbstractBackgroundTicks are responsible for transmitting several notable pathogens worldwide. Finland lies in a zone where two human-biting tick species co-occur:IxodesricinusandIxodespersulcatus. Tick densities have increased in boreal regions worldwide during past decades, and tick-borne pathogens have been identified as one of the major threats to public health in the face of climate change.MethodsWe used species distribution modelling techniques to predict the distributions ofI.ricinusandI.persulcatus,using aggregated historical data from 2014 to 2020 and new tick occurrence data from 2021. By aiming to fill the gaps in tick occurrence data, we created a new sampling strategy across Fin…
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi influence host infection during epidemics in a wild plant pathosystem
2022
SummaryWhile pathogenic and mutualistic microbes are ubiquitous across ecosystems and often co-occur within hosts, how they interact to determine patterns of disease in genetically diverse wild populations is unknown.To test whether microbial mutualists provide protection against pathogens, and whether this varies among host genotypes, we conducted a field experiment in three naturally-occurring epidemics of a fungal pathogen, Podosphaera plantaginis, infecting a host plant, Plantago lanceolata, in the Åland Islands, Finland. In each population, we collected epidemiological data on experimental plants from six allopatric populations that had been inoculated with a mixture of mutualistic arb…
Within-host evolution decreases virulence in an opportunistic bacterial pathogen
2015
Abstract Background Pathogens evolve in a close antagonistic relationship with their hosts. The conventional theory proposes that evolution of virulence is highly dependent on the efficiency of direct host-to-host transmission. Many opportunistic pathogens, however, are not strictly dependent on the hosts due to their ability to reproduce in the free-living environment. Therefore it is likely that conflicting selection pressures for growth and survival outside versus within the host, rather than transmission potential, shape the evolution of virulence in opportunists. We tested the role of within-host selection in evolution of virulence by letting a pathogen Serratia marcescens db11 sequent…
Prevalence of genetically similar Flavobacterium columnare phages across aquaculture environments reveals a strong potential for pathogen control
2022
Intensive aquaculture conditions expose fish to bacterial infections, leading to significant financial losses, extensive antibiotic use and risk of antibiotic resistance in target bacteria. Flavobacterium columnare causes columnaris disease in aquaculture worldwide. To develop a bacteriophage-based control of columnaris disease, we isolated and characterized 126 F. columnare strains and 63 phages against F. columnare from Finland and Sweden in 2017. Bacterial isolates were virulent on rainbow trout (Oncorhynchus mykiss) and fell into four previously described genetic groups A, C, E and G, with genetic groups C and E being the most virulent. Phage host range studied against a collection of 2…
Complete Genome Sequence of Fish Pathogen Flavobacterium columnare Strain B185, Originating from Finland
2019
We report a complete genome sequence of a Finnish isolate of the fish pathogen Flavobacterium columnare. Using PacBio RS II sequencing technology, the complete circular genome of F. columnare strain B185 with 3,261,404 bp was obtained.