The Sit and Wait Hypothesis, and related Durable Energy Storage Hypothesis, lie at the intersection between Infectious Diseases and Microbial Evolutionary Biology. Sit-and-Wait posits that non-vector borne pathogens need abiotic stress tolerance mechanisms; otherwise they will not survive if dropped into the environment, and thus, in order to survive as a species, their virulence will become attenuated over time. Similarly, virulent pathogens require durable energy stores to fuel the next stages. The Sit-and-Wait Hypothesis applies to pathogens from all microbial domains (bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes) and well as viruses, though most of the work to date has been in the bacterial domain.
The intriguing Sit-and-Wait hypothesis predicts that durability in the external environment is positively correlated with the evolution of microbial virulence. Since its first proposal in 1980s, the hypothesis has been spurring debates in terms of its validity in the field of microbial virulence, and sporadic studies over the last four decades showing that environmental durability is possibly linked with virulence. However, there are still many gaps in our comprehension of the interactions between durability and virulence. Through the proposed research topic, recent progresses, current challenges, and future perspectives in this exciting field will be discussed ,which will greatly facilitate our understanding of the Sit-and-Wait hypothesis, hence the management and prevention of infectious diseases.
This Research Topic will accept Original Research, Reviews, Perspective and Opinion articles focusing on:
* Measures of virulence versus abiotic stress tolerance
* Application of Sit-and-Wait Hypothesis to viral, fungal, archaeal or bacterial pathogens
* Cross kingdom analyses
* Patterns of abiotic stress tolerance
* Computational analysis of the links between abiotic stress tolerance and virulence
The Sit and Wait Hypothesis, and related Durable Energy Storage Hypothesis, lie at the intersection between Infectious Diseases and Microbial Evolutionary Biology. Sit-and-Wait posits that non-vector borne pathogens need abiotic stress tolerance mechanisms; otherwise they will not survive if dropped into the environment, and thus, in order to survive as a species, their virulence will become attenuated over time. Similarly, virulent pathogens require durable energy stores to fuel the next stages. The Sit-and-Wait Hypothesis applies to pathogens from all microbial domains (bacteria, archaea and eukaryotes) and well as viruses, though most of the work to date has been in the bacterial domain.
The intriguing Sit-and-Wait hypothesis predicts that durability in the external environment is positively correlated with the evolution of microbial virulence. Since its first proposal in 1980s, the hypothesis has been spurring debates in terms of its validity in the field of microbial virulence, and sporadic studies over the last four decades showing that environmental durability is possibly linked with virulence. However, there are still many gaps in our comprehension of the interactions between durability and virulence. Through the proposed research topic, recent progresses, current challenges, and future perspectives in this exciting field will be discussed ,which will greatly facilitate our understanding of the Sit-and-Wait hypothesis, hence the management and prevention of infectious diseases.
This Research Topic will accept Original Research, Reviews, Perspective and Opinion articles focusing on:
* Measures of virulence versus abiotic stress tolerance
* Application of Sit-and-Wait Hypothesis to viral, fungal, archaeal or bacterial pathogens
* Cross kingdom analyses
* Patterns of abiotic stress tolerance
* Computational analysis of the links between abiotic stress tolerance and virulence