Mariën Joachim, Borremans Benny, Gryseels Sophie, Broecke Bram Vanden, Becker-Ziaja Beate, Makundi Rhodes, Massawe Apia, Reijniers Jonas, Leirs Herwig
Evolutionary Ecology Group, University of Antwerp, Campus Drie Eiken, Universiteitsplein 1, 2610, Wilrijk, Antwerp, Belgium.
Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA, USA.
Ecohealth. 2017 Sep;14(3):463-473. doi: 10.1007/s10393-017-1256-7. Epub 2017 Jun 14.
Infectious diseases of wildlife are typically studied using data on antibody and pathogen levels. In order to interpret these data, it is necessary to know the course of antibodies and pathogen levels after infection. Such data are typically collected using experimental infection studies in which host individuals are inoculated in the laboratory and sampled over an extended period, but because laboratory conditions are controlled and much less variable than natural conditions, the immune response and pathogen dynamics may differ. Here, we compared Morogoro arenavirus infection patterns between naturally and experimentally infected multimammate mice (Mastomys natalensis). Longitudinal samples were collected during three months of bi-weekly trapping in Morogoro, Tanzania, and antibody titer and viral RNA presence were determined. The time of infection was estimated from these data using a recently developed Bayesian approach, which allowed us to assess whether the natural temporal patterns match the previously observed patterns in the laboratory. A good match was found for 52% of naturally infected individuals, while most of the mismatches can be explained by the presence of chronically infected individuals (35%), maternal antibodies (10%), and an antibody detection limit (25%). These results suggest that while laboratory data are useful for interpreting field samples, there can still be differences due to conditions that were not tested in the laboratory.
野生动物传染病通常利用抗体和病原体水平的数据进行研究。为了解释这些数据，有必要了解感染后抗体和病原体水平的变化过程。此类数据通常通过实验性感染研究收集，即在实验室中对宿主个体进行接种，并在较长时间内进行采样，但由于实验室条件受到控制，且与自然条件相比变化较小，免疫反应和病原体动态可能会有所不同。在此，我们比较了自然感染和实验感染的多乳鼠（南非多乳鼠）之间的莫罗戈罗沙粒病毒感染模式。在坦桑尼亚莫罗戈罗进行了为期三个月的每两周一次的诱捕，并收集纵向样本，测定抗体滴度和病毒RNA的存在情况。利用最近开发的贝叶斯方法从这些数据中估计感染时间，这使我们能够评估自然时间模式是否与之前在实验室中观察到的模式相匹配。52%的自然感染个体被发现匹配良好，而大多数不匹配情况可由慢性感染个体的存在（35%）、母源抗体（10%）和抗体检测限（25%）来解释。这些结果表明，虽然实验室数据有助于解释野外样本，但由于实验室未测试的条件，仍然可能存在差异。
