No measurable adverse effects of Lassa, Morogoro and Gairo arenaviruses on their rodent reservoir host in natural conditions

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68081766%3A_____%2F17%3A00474266" target="_blank" >RIV/68081766:_____/17:00474266 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-017-2146-0" target="_blank" >http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-017-2146-0</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s13071-017-2146-0" target="_blank" >10.1186/s13071-017-2146-0</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

No measurable adverse effects of Lassa, Morogoro and Gairo arenaviruses on their rodent reservoir host in natural conditions

Original language description

In order to optimize net transmission success, parasites are hypothesized to evolve towards causing minimal damage to their reservoir host while obtaining high shedding rates. For many parasite species however this paradigm has not been tested, and conflicting results have been found regarding the effect of arenaviruses on their rodent host species. The rodent Mastomys natalensis is the natural reservoir host of several arenaviruses, including Lassa virus that is known to cause Lassa haemorrhagic fever in humans. Here, we examined the effect of three arenaviruses (Gairo, Morogoro and Lassa virus) on four parameters of wild-caught Mastomys natalensis: body mass, head-body length, sexual maturity and fertility. After correcting for the effect of age, we compared these parameters between arenavirus-positive (arenavirus RNA or antibody) and negative animals using data from different field studies in Guinea (Lassa virus) and Tanzania (Morogoro and Gairo viruses).nAlthough the sample sizes of our studies (1297, 749 and 259 animals respectively) were large enough to statistically detect small differences in body conditions, we did not observe any adverse effects of these viruses on Mastomys natalensis. We did find that sexual maturity was significantly positively related with Lassa virus antibody presence until a certain age, and with Gairo virus antibody presence in general. Gairo virus antibody-positive animals were also significantly heavier and larger than antibody-free animals.nTogether, these results suggest that the pathogenicity of arenaviruses is not severe in M. natalensis, which is likely to be an adaptation of these viruses to optimize transmission success. They also suggest that sexual behaviour might increase the probability of M. natalensis to become infected with arenaviruses.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

30310 - Parasitology

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2017

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Parasites & Vectors

ISSN

1756-3305

e-ISSN

—

Volume of the periodical

10

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

11

Pages from-to

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UT code for WoS article

000400310900001

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85018173774