The impact of simultaneous infections on phage-host ecology

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Sudweeks, Jaye, Hauert, Christoph
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Sudweeks, Jaye
Hauert, Christoph
author_facet Sudweeks, Jaye
Hauert, Christoph
contents Phages use bacterial host resources to replicate, intrinsically linking phage and host survival. To understand phage dynamics, it is essential to understand phage-host ecology. A key step in this ecology is infection of bacterial hosts. Previous work has explored single and multiple, sequential infections. Here we focus on the theory of simultaneous infections, where multiple phages simultaneously attach to and infect one bacterial host cell. Simultaneous infections are a relevant infection dynamic to consider, especially at high phage densities when many phages attach to a single host cell in a short time window. For high bacterial growth rates, simultaneous infection can result in bi-stability: depending on initial conditions phages go extinct or co-exist with hosts, either at stable densities or through periodic oscillations of a stable limit cycle. This bears important consequences for phage applications such as phage therapy: phages can persist even though they cannot invade. Consequently, through spikes in phage densities it is possible to infect a bacterial population even when the phage basic reproductive number is less than one. In the regime of stable limit cycles, if timed right, only small densities of phage may be necessary.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2412_19717
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The impact of simultaneous infections on phage-host ecology
Sudweeks, Jaye
Hauert, Christoph
Populations and Evolution
Phages use bacterial host resources to replicate, intrinsically linking phage and host survival. To understand phage dynamics, it is essential to understand phage-host ecology. A key step in this ecology is infection of bacterial hosts. Previous work has explored single and multiple, sequential infections. Here we focus on the theory of simultaneous infections, where multiple phages simultaneously attach to and infect one bacterial host cell. Simultaneous infections are a relevant infection dynamic to consider, especially at high phage densities when many phages attach to a single host cell in a short time window. For high bacterial growth rates, simultaneous infection can result in bi-stability: depending on initial conditions phages go extinct or co-exist with hosts, either at stable densities or through periodic oscillations of a stable limit cycle. This bears important consequences for phage applications such as phage therapy: phages can persist even though they cannot invade. Consequently, through spikes in phage densities it is possible to infect a bacterial population even when the phage basic reproductive number is less than one. In the regime of stable limit cycles, if timed right, only small densities of phage may be necessary.
title The impact of simultaneous infections on phage-host ecology
topic Populations and Evolution
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2412.19717