IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/natcom/v6y2015i1d10.1038_ncomms7101.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Evolution and emergence of infectious diseases in theoretical and real-world networks

Author

Listed:
  • Gabriel E. Leventhal

    (Institute for Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich)

  • Alison L. Hill

    (Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University)

  • Martin A. Nowak

    (Program for Evolutionary Dynamics, Harvard University)

  • Sebastian Bonhoeffer

    (Institute for Integrative Biology, ETH Zürich)

Abstract

One of the most important advancements in theoretical epidemiology has been the development of methods that account for realistic host population structure. The central finding is that heterogeneity in contact networks, such as the presence of ‘superspreaders’, accelerates infectious disease spread in real epidemics. Disease control is also complicated by the continuous evolution of pathogens in response to changing environments and medical interventions. It remains unclear, however, how population structure influences these adaptive processes. Here we examine the evolution of infectious disease in empirical and theoretical networks. We show that the heterogeneity in contact structure, which facilitates the spread of a single disease, surprisingly renders a resident strain more resilient to invasion by new variants. Our results suggest that many host contact structures suppress invasion of new strains and may slow disease adaptation. These findings are important to the natural history of disease evolution and the spread of drug-resistant strains.

Suggested Citation

  • Gabriel E. Leventhal & Alison L. Hill & Martin A. Nowak & Sebastian Bonhoeffer, 2015. "Evolution and emergence of infectious diseases in theoretical and real-world networks," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 6(1), pages 1-11, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms7101
    DOI: 10.1038/ncomms7101
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms7101
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/ncomms7101?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Mostafa FN Abushahba, 2018. "The Eternal Battle between Microbes and Humans," Biomedical Journal of Scientific & Technical Research, Biomedical Research Network+, LLC, vol. 2(2), pages 2538-2539, February.
    2. Yanling Zhang & Feng Fu, 2018. "Strategy intervention for the evolution of fairness," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(5), pages 1-13, May.
    3. Jonas I Liechti & Gabriel E Leventhal & Sebastian Bonhoeffer, 2017. "Host population structure impedes reversion to drug sensitivity after discontinuation of treatment," PLOS Computational Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(8), pages 1-19, August.
    4. Deka, Aniruddha & Bhattacharyya, Samit, 2022. "The effect of human vaccination behaviour on strain competition in an infectious disease: An imitation dynamic approach," Theoretical Population Biology, Elsevier, vol. 143(C), pages 62-76.
    5. Madikay Senghore & Hannah Read & Priyali Oza & Sarah Johnson & Hemanoel Passarelli-Araujo & Bradford P. Taylor & Stephen Ashley & Alex Grey & Alanna Callendrello & Robyn Lee & Matthew R. Goddard & Tho, 2023. "Inferring bacterial transmission dynamics using deep sequencing genomic surveillance data," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 14(1), pages 1-12, December.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms7101. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.