ArticlePLoS pathogens2015
Bacterial Cooperation Causes Systematic Errors in Pathogen Risk Assessment due to the Failure of the Independent Action Hypothesis.
Article in PLoS pathogens, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
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17 citing papers in PubMed, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- Varying phylogenetic signal in susceptibility to four bacterial pathogens across species of Drosophilidae.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2025Article
- Dose-dependent interaction of parasites with tiers of host defense predicts "wormholes" that prolong infection at intermediate inoculum sizes.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Group Selection as a Basis for Screening Mutagenized Libraries of Public Goods (Bacillus thuringiensis Cry Toxins).Applied and environmental microbiology · 2023Article
- Selecting for infectivity across metapopulations can increase virulence in the social microbeEvolutionary applications · 2023Article
- Strong Environment-Genotype Interactions Determine the Fitness Costs of Antibiotic ResistanceAntimicrobial agents and chemotherapy · 2020Article
- Dose-response and transmission: the nexus between reservoir hosts, environment and recipient hosts.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2019Review
- Shifts along the parasite-mutualist continuum are opposed by fundamental trade-offs.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Crystal toxins and the volunteer's dilemma in bacteria.Journal of evolutionary biology · 2019Article
- The application of self-limiting transgenic insects in managing resistance in experimental metapopulations.The Journal of applied ecology · 2019Article
- Herbivore-Induced Defenses in Tomato Plants Enhance the Lethality of the Entomopathogenic Bacterium, Bacillus thuringiensis var. kurstaki.Journal of chemical ecology · 2018Article
- Combining the high-dose/refuge strategy and self-limiting transgenic insects in resistance management-A test in experimental mesocosms.Evolutionary applications · 2018Article
- In defense of Bacillus thuringiensis, the safest and most successful microbial insecticide available to humanity - a response to EFSA.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2017Article
- Synergistic Activity Between S-Layer Protein and Spore-Crystal Preparations from Lysinibacillus sphaericus Against Culex quinquefasciatus Larvae.Current microbiology · 2017Article
- Limiting opportunities for cheating stabilizes virulence in insect parasitic nematodes.Evolutionary applications · 2016Article
- Variability in Cell Response of Cronobacter sakazakii after Mild-Heat Treatments and Its Impact on Food Safety.Frontiers in microbiology · 2016Article
- Making pathogens sociable: the [corrected] emergence of high relatedness through limited host invasibility.The ISME journal · 2015Article
- Bacterial Cooperation Causes Systematic Errors in Pathogen Risk Assessment due to the Failure of the Independent Action Hypothesis.PLoS pathogens · 2015Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
The Independent Action Hypothesis (IAH) states that pathogenic individuals (cells, spores, virus particles etc.) behave independently of each other, so that each has an independent probability of causing systemic infection or death. The IAH is not just of basic scientific interest; it forms the basis of our current estimates of infectious disease risk in humans. Despite the important role of the IAH in managing disease interventions for food and water-borne pathogens, experimental support for the IAH in bacterial pathogens is indirect at best. Moreover since the IAH was first proposed, cooperative behaviors have been discovered in a wide range of microorganisms, including many pathogens. A fundamental principle of cooperation is that the fitness of individuals is affected by the presence and behaviors of others, which is contrary to the assumption of independent action. In this paper, we test the IAH in Bacillus thuringiensis (B.t), a widely occurring insect pathogen that releases toxins that benefit others in the inoculum, infecting the diamondback moth, Plutella xylostella. By experimentally separating B.t. spores from their toxins, we demonstrate that the IAH fails because there is an interaction between toxin and spore effects on mortality, where the toxin effect is synergistic and cannot be accommodated by independence assumptions. Finally, we show that applying recommended IAH dose-response models to high dose data leads to systematic overestimation of mortality risks at low doses, due to the presence of synergistic pathogen interactions. Our results show that cooperative secretions can easily invalidate the IAH, and that such mechanistic details should be incorporated into pathogen risk analysis.
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