TY - JOUR
T1 - High costs of infection
T2 - Alphavirus infection reduces digestive function and bone and feather growth in nestling house sparrows (Passer domesticus)
AU - Fassbinder-Orth, Carol A.
AU - Killpack, Tess L.
AU - Goto, Dylan S.
AU - Rainwater, Ellecia L.
AU - Shearn-Bochsler, Valerie I.
N1 - Funding Information:
This publication was made possible by grants from the National Institute for General Medical Science (NIGMS) (5P20GM103427), a component of the Institutes of Health (NIH), and its contents are the sole responsibility of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official views of NIGMS or NIH. Additional funding was provided by a research fellowship to CFO and MJW from Creighton’s Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship, Dr. George F. Haddix President’s Faculty Research Fund to CFO, and a summer research fellowship from Randolph Ferlic and the Creighton Center for Undergraduate Research and Scholarship to ELR and DSG.
Publisher Copyright:
This is an open access article, free of all copyright, and may be freely reproduced, distributed, transmitted, modified, built upon, or otherwise used by anyone for any lawful purpose. The work is made available under the Creative Commons CC0 public domain dedication.
PY - 2018/4
Y1 - 2018/4
N2 - Increasingly, ecoimmunology studies aim to use relevant pathogen exposure to examine the impacts of infection on physiological processes in wild animals. Alphaviruses are arthropod-borne, single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) viruses (“arboviruses”) responsible for millions of cases of human illnesses each year. Buggy Creek virus (BCRV) is a unique alphavirus that is transmitted by a cimicid insect, the swallow bug, and is amplified in two avian species: the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) and the cliff swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota). BCRV, like many alphaviruses, exhibits age-dependent susceptibility where the young are most susceptible to developing disease and exhibit a high mortality rate. However, alphavirus disease etiology in nestling birds is unknown. In this study, we infected nestling house sparrows with Buggy Creek virus and measured virological, pathological, growth, and digestive parameters following infection. Buggy Creek virus caused severe encephalitis in all infected nestlings, and the peak viral concentration in brain tissue was over 34 times greater than any other tissue. Growth, tissue development, and digestive function were all significantly impaired during BCRV infection. However, based on histopathological analysis performed, this impairment does not appear to be the result of direct tissue damage by the virus, but likely caused by encephalitis and neuronal invasion and impairment of the central nervous system. This is the first study to examine the course of alphavirus diseases in nestling birds and these results will improve our understanding of age-dependent infections of alphaviruses in vertebrate hosts.
AB - Increasingly, ecoimmunology studies aim to use relevant pathogen exposure to examine the impacts of infection on physiological processes in wild animals. Alphaviruses are arthropod-borne, single-stranded RNA (ssRNA) viruses (“arboviruses”) responsible for millions of cases of human illnesses each year. Buggy Creek virus (BCRV) is a unique alphavirus that is transmitted by a cimicid insect, the swallow bug, and is amplified in two avian species: the house sparrow (Passer domesticus) and the cliff swallow (Petrochelidon pyrrhonota). BCRV, like many alphaviruses, exhibits age-dependent susceptibility where the young are most susceptible to developing disease and exhibit a high mortality rate. However, alphavirus disease etiology in nestling birds is unknown. In this study, we infected nestling house sparrows with Buggy Creek virus and measured virological, pathological, growth, and digestive parameters following infection. Buggy Creek virus caused severe encephalitis in all infected nestlings, and the peak viral concentration in brain tissue was over 34 times greater than any other tissue. Growth, tissue development, and digestive function were all significantly impaired during BCRV infection. However, based on histopathological analysis performed, this impairment does not appear to be the result of direct tissue damage by the virus, but likely caused by encephalitis and neuronal invasion and impairment of the central nervous system. This is the first study to examine the course of alphavirus diseases in nestling birds and these results will improve our understanding of age-dependent infections of alphaviruses in vertebrate hosts.
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U2 - 10.1371/journal.pone.0195467
DO - 10.1371/journal.pone.0195467
M3 - Article
C2 - 29624598
AN - SCOPUS:85045071254
VL - 13
JO - PLoS One
JF - PLoS One
SN - 1932-6203
IS - 4
M1 - e0195467
ER -