Spatial parasite transmission, drug resistance, and the spread of rare genes

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2003 Jun 10;100(12):7401-5. doi: 10.1073/pnas.0832206100. Epub 2003 May 27.

Abstract

The transmission of many parasitic worms involves aggregated movement between hosts of "packets" of infectious larvae. We use a generic metapopulation model to show that this aggregation naturally promotes the preferential spread of rare recessive genes, compared with the expectations of traditional nonspatial models. A more biologically realistic model also demonstrates that this effect could explain the rapid observed spread of recessive or weakly dominant drug-resistant genotypes in nematode parasites of sheep. This promotion of a recessive trait arises from a novel mechanism of inbreeding arising from the metapopulation dynamics of transmission.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Drug Resistance / genetics
  • Genes, Dominant
  • Genes, Helminth
  • Genes, Recessive
  • Host-Parasite Interactions / genetics
  • Models, Biological
  • Nematoda / drug effects
  • Nematoda / genetics
  • Nematoda / pathogenicity
  • Parasitic Diseases / drug therapy
  • Parasitic Diseases / parasitology
  • Parasitic Diseases / transmission*
  • Sheep
  • Sheep Diseases / drug therapy
  • Sheep Diseases / parasitology
  • Sheep Diseases / transmission
  • Trichostrongylosis / drug therapy
  • Trichostrongylosis / parasitology
  • Trichostrongylosis / transmission
  • Trichostrongylosis / veterinary