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Selection and evolution of virulence in bacteria: an ecumenical excursion and modest suggestion

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 April 2009

B.R. Levin  and
C. Svanborg Edén
B.R. Levin
Affiliation:
Department of Zoology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst 01003, USA
C. Svanborg Edén
Affiliation:
Department of Microbiology and Clinical Immunology, University of Lund, Sweden
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Summary

Why do parasites kill their hosts? During this past decade, research in three different areas; evolutionary ecology, medical microbiology, and population genetics has provided theory and data that address this and related questions of selection and the evolution and maintenance of parasite virulence. A general theory of parasite–host coevolution and the conditions for selection to favour parasite virulence has been put forth. Considerable advances have been made in elucidating the mechanisms of pathogenicity and inheritance of virulence in bacteria. The population genetic structure and the relation ship between pathogenic and non-pathogenic forms has been determined for a number of species of bacteria. We critically review these developments and their implications for questions of selection and the evolution and maintenance of virulence in bacteria. We postulate how selection may operate on specific types of bacterial virulence and present a general protocol to experimentally test hypotheses concerning selection and the evolution of virulence in bacteria.

Keywords

virulencecoevolutionvirulence determinantsbacterial pathogenicitypopulation genetics of bacteria.
Type
Research Article
Information
Parasitology , Volume 100 , Issue S1: Symposia of the British Society for Parasitology Volume 27:The evolutionary biology of parasitism , June 1990 , pp. S103 - S115
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1990

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