Related papers: Within-host bacterial growth dynamics with both mu…
In this work we have investigated the evolutionary dynamics of a generalist pathogen, e.g. a virus population, that evolves towards specialisation in an environment with multiple host types. We have particularly explored under which…
We present a two-species population model in a well-mixed environment where the dynamics involves, in addition to birth and death, changes due to environmental factors and inter-species interactions. The novel dynamical components are…
Humans, domestic animals, orchard crops, and ornamental plants are commonly treated with antibiotics in response to bacterial infection. By curing infectious individuals, antibiotic therapy might limit the spread of contagious disease among…
We investigate the interplay between two fundamental mechanisms of microbial population dynamics and evolution called dormancy and horizontal gene transfer. The corresponding traits come in many guises and are ubiquitous in microbial…
Horizontal gene transfer consists in exchanging genetic materials between microorganisms during their lives. This is a major mechanism of bacterial evolution and is believed to be of main importance in antibiotics resistance. We consider a…
Humans, domestic animals, orchard crops, and ornamental plants are commonly treated with antibiotics in response to bacterial infection. By curing infectious individuals, antibiotic therapy might limit the spread of contagious disease among…
Chronic viral infections can persist in an infected person for decades. From the perspective of the virus, a single infection can span thousands of generations, leading to a highly diverse population of viruses with its own complex…
Microbes are everywhere, including in and on our bodies, and have been shown to play key roles in a variety of prevalent human diseases. Consequently, there has been intense interest in the design of bacteriotherapies or "bugs as drugs,"…
Antibiotic resistance is a growing public health problem. To gain a fundamental understanding of resistance evolution, a combination of systematic experimental and theoretical approaches is required. Evolution experiments combined with…
Mathematical models of infectious disease transmission typically neglect within-host dynamics. Yet within-host dynamics - including pathogen replication, host immune responses, and interactions with microbiota - are crucial not only for…
We present a novel model that describes the within-host evolutionary dynamics of parasites undergoing antigenic variation. The approach uses a multi-type branching process with two types of entities defined according to their relationship…
The intestinal microbiota plays important roles in digestion and resistance against entero-pathogens. As with other ecosystems, its species composition is resilient against small disturbances but strong perturbations such as antibiotics can…
Bacteria develop resistance to antibiotics through various mechanisms, with the specific mechanism depending on the drug-bacteria pair. It remains unclear, however, which resistance mechanism best supports favorable treatment outcomes,…
This paper introduces a stochastic adaptive dynamics model for the interplay of several crucial traits and mechanisms in bacterial evolution, namely dormancy, horizontal gene transfer (HGT), mutation and competition. In particular, it…
Antimicrobial protocols - using substances such as antibiotics or disinfectants - remain the preferred option for preventing the spread of pathogenic bacteria. However, bacteria can develop mechanisms to reduce their antimicrobial…
Biological evolution of a population is governed by the fitness landscape, which is a map from genotype to fitness. However, a fitness landscape depends on the organisms environment, and evolution in changing environments is still poorly…
We present a model for the dynamics of a population of bacteria with a continuum of traits, who compete for resources and exchange horizontally (transfer) an otherwise vertically inherited trait with possible mutations. Competition…
There is a pressing need to better understand how microbial populations respond to antimicrobial drugs, and to find mechanisms to possibly eradicate antimicrobial-resistant cells. The inactivation of antimicrobials by resistant microbes can…
Host-to-host variability with respect to interactions between microorganisms and multicellular hosts are commonly observed in infection and in homeostasis. However, the majority of mechanistic models used in analyzing host-microorganism…
Bacteria evolve resistance to antibiotics by a multitude of mechanisms. A central, yet unsolved question is how resistance evolution affects cell growth at different drug levels. Here we develop a fitness model that predicts growth rates of…