Department of Epidemiology, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Epidemics. 2009 Mar;1(1):2-13. doi: 10.1016/j.epidem.2008.07.001. Epub 2008 Nov 4.
In most pathogens, multiple strains are maintained within host populations. Quantifying the mechanisms underlying strain coexistence would aid public health planning and improve understanding of disease dynamics. We argue that mathematical models of strain coexistence, when applied to indistinguishable strains, should meet criteria for both ecological neutrality and population genetic neutrality. We show that closed clonal transmission models which can be written in an "ancestor-tracing" form that meets the former criterion will also satisfy the latter. Neutral models can be a parsimonious starting point for studying mechanisms of strain coexistence; implications for past and future studies are discussed.
在大多数病原体中，宿主群体中会同时存在多种菌株。对菌株共存的机制进行量化，将有助于公共卫生规划，并增进对疾病动态的理解。我们认为，应用于无法区分的菌株的菌株共存数学模型应同时满足生态中性和群体遗传中性的标准。我们表明，可采用符合前者标准的“追溯祖先”形式书写的封闭克隆传播模型也将满足后者。中性模型可以作为研究菌株共存机制的简约起点；讨论了其对过去和未来研究的影响。
