Modelling invasive pathogen load from non-destructive sampling data

MARTÍNKOVÁ, Natália, Pavel ŠKRABÁNEK and Jiří PIKULA. Modelling invasive pathogen load from non-destructive sampling data. Journal of Theoretical Biology. London: Elsevier, 2019, vol. 464, March 2019, p. 98-103. ISSN 0022-5193. Available from: https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2018.12.026.

Basic information

• Original name: Modelling invasive pathogen load from non-destructive sampling data
• Authors: MARTÍNKOVÁ, Natália (703 Slovakia, guarantor, belonging to the institution), Pavel ŠKRABÁNEK (203 Czech Republic) and Jiří PIKULA (203 Czech Republic).
• Edition: Journal of Theoretical Biology, London, Elsevier, 2019, 0022-5193.

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Article in a journal
• Field of Study: 10602 Biology , Evolutionary biology
• Country of publisher: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• WWW: URL
• Impact factor: Impact factor: 2.327
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14110/19:00113549
• Organization unit: Faculty of Medicine
• Doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jtbi.2018.12.026
• UT WoS: 000457204500009
• Keywords in English: Pathogen load; Skin lesion; Fungal infection; Pseudogymnoascus destructans; White-nose syndrome; Bat; UV light diagnostics
• Tags: 14119612, rivok
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

Where microbes colonizing skin surface may help maintain organism homeostasis, those that invade living skin layers cause disease. In bats, white-nose syndrome is a fungal skin infection that affects animals during hibernation and may lead to mortality in severe cases. Here, we inferred the amount of fungus that had invaded skin tissue of diseased animals. We used simulations to estimate the unobserved disease severity in a non-lethal wing punch biopsy and to relate the simulated pathology to the measured fungal load in paired biopsies. We found that a single white-nose syndrome skin lesion packed with spores and hyphae of the causative agent, Pseudogymnoascus destructans, contains 48.93 pg of the pathogen DNA, which amounts to about 1560 P destructans genomes in one skin lesion.