ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2019
Immune stability predicts tuberculosis infection risk in a wild mammal.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 4 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
4 citing papers in PubMed, 6 citations in OpenAlex.
- Age-Stratified Effects of Diabetes Mellitus on Central Nervous System Tuberculosis Risk and Combined Effects with Neutrophil-to-Lymphocyte Ratio.Infection and drug resistance · 2026Article
- T-helper cell phenotypes are repeatable, positively correlated, and associated with helminth infection in wild Soay sheep.Discovery immunology · 2025Article
- Functionally distinct T-helper cell phenotypes predict resistance to different types of parasites in a wild mammal.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Immune stability predicts tuberculosis infection risk in a wild mammal.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 4 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
Abstract
Immunity is one of the most variable phenotypic traits in animals; however, some individuals may show less fluctuation in immune traits, resulting in stable patterns of immune variation over time. It is currently unknown whether immune variation has consequences for infectious disease risk. In this study, we identified moderately stable immune traits in wild African buffalo and asked whether the stability of these traits affected bovine tuberculosis (TB) infection risk. We found that adaptive immune traits such as the level of interferon-γ (IFN-γ) released after white blood cell stimulation, the number of circulating lymphocytes and the level of antibodies against bovine adenovirus-3 were moderately repeatable (i.e. stable) over time, whereas parameters related to innate immunity either had low repeatability (circulating eosinophil numbers) or were not repeatable (e.g. neutrophil numbers, plasma bacteria killing capacity). Intriguingly, individuals with more repeatable IFN-γ and lymphocyte levels were at a significantly higher risk of acquiring TB infection. In stark contrast, average IFN-γ and lymphocyte levels were poor predictors of TB risk, indicating that immune variability rather than absolute response level better captured variation in disease susceptibility. This work highlights the important and under-appreciated role of immune variability as a predictor of infection risk.
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Registered trials
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