Journal article
The relative contribution of causal factors in the transition from infection to clinical chlamydial disease
Scientific Reports, Vol.8, 8893
2018
Abstract
Chlamydia is a major bacterial pathogen in humans and animals globally. Yet 80% of infections never progress to clinical disease. Decades of research have generated an interconnected network linking pathogen, host, and environmental factors to disease expression, but the relative importance of these and whether they account for disease progression remains unknown. To address this, we used structural equation modeling to evaluate putative factors likely to contribute to urogenital and ocular chlamydial disease in the koala (Phascolarctos cinereus). These factors include Chlamydia detection, load, and ompA genotype; urogenital and ocular microbiomes; host sex, age, weight, body condition; breading season, time of year; location; retrovirus co-infection; and major histocompatibility complex class II (MHCII) alleles. We show different microbiological processes underpin disease progression at urogenital and ocular sites. From each category of factors, urogenital disease was most strongly predicted by chlamydial PCR detection and load, koala body condition and environmental location. In contrast, ocular disease was most strongly predicted by phylum-level Chlamydiae microbiome proportions, sampling during breeding season and co-infection with koala retrovirus subtype B. Host MHCII alleles also contributed predictive power to both disease models. Our results also show considerable uncertainty remains, suggesting major causal mechanisms are yet to be discovered.
Details
- Title
- The relative contribution of causal factors in the transition from infection to clinical chlamydial disease
- Authors
- Bonnie L Quigley (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and EngineeringScott Carver (Author) - University of TasmaniaJon Hanger (Author) - Endeavour Veterinary EcologyMiranda E Vidgen (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and EngineeringPeter Timms (Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast - Faculty of Science, Health, Education and Engineering
- Publication details
- Scientific Reports, Vol.8, 8893; 11
- Publisher
- Nature Publishing Group
- Date published
- 2018
- DOI
- 10.1038/s41598-018-27253-z
- ISSN
- 2045-2322
- Copyright note
- Copyright © The Author(s) 2018. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Organisation Unit
- University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland; Thompson Institute; Centre for Bioinnovation
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 99451226102621
- Output Type
- Journal article
Metrics
15 File views/ downloads
364 Record Views
InCites Highlights
These are selected metrics from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool, related to this output
- Collaboration types
- Domestic collaboration
- Web Of Science research areas
- Immunology
UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)
This output has contributed to the advancement of the following goals:
Source: InCites