Aulsebrook, Lucinda C., Wong, Bob B.M., and Hall, Matthew D. (2024) Pharmaceutical pollution alters the cost of bacterial infection and its relationship to pathogen load. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, Biological Sciences, 291 (2014). 20231273.

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Abstract

The relationship between pathogen proliferation and the cost of infection experienced by a host drives the ecology and evolution of host–pathogen dynamics. While environmental factors can shape this relationship, there is currently limited knowledge on the consequences of emerging contaminants, such as pharmaceutical pollutants, on the relationship between a pathogen's growth within the host and the damage it causes, termed its virulence. Here, we investigated how exposure to fluoxetine (Prozac), a commonly detected psychoactive pollutant, could alter this key relationship using the water flea Daphnia magna and its bacterial pathogen Pasteuria ramosa as a model system. Across a variety of fluoxetine concentrations, we found that fluoxetine shaped the damage a pathogen caused, such as the reduction in fecundity or intrinsic growth experienced by infected individuals, but with minimal change in average pathogen spore loads. Instead, fluoxetine modified the relationship between the degree of pathogen proliferation and its virulence, with both the strength of this trade-off and the component of host fitness most affected varying by fluoxetine concentration and host genotype. Our study underscores the potential for pharmaceutical pollution to modify the virulence of an invading pathogen, as well as the fundamental trade-off between host and pathogen fitness, even at the trace amounts increasingly found in natural waterways.

Item ID:	83897
Item Type:	Article (Research - C1)
ISSN:	1471-2954
Copyright Information:	© 2024 The Authors. Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
Funders:	Australian Research Council (ARC)
Projects and Grants:	ARC FT180100248, ARC DP200102522, ARC FT190100014, ARC DP220100245
Date Deposited:	28 Oct 2024 01:39
FoR Codes:	31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3104 Evolutionary biology > 310407 Host-parasite interactions @ 40% 41 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES > 4102 Ecological applications > 410201 Bioavailability and ecotoxicology @ 20% 31 BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES > 3104 Evolutionary biology > 310405 Evolutionary ecology @ 40%
SEO Codes:	19 ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY, CLIMATE CHANGE AND NATURAL HAZARDS > 1999 Other environmental policy, climate change and natural hazards > 199999 Other environmental policy, climate change and natural hazards not elsewhere classified @ 20% 28 EXPANDING KNOWLEDGE > 2801 Expanding knowledge > 280102 Expanding knowledge in the biological sciences @ 60% 18 ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT > 1899 Other environmental management > 189999 Other environmental management not elsewhere classified @ 20%
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