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The initial amount of pathogens required to start an infection within a susceptible host is called the infective dose and is known to vary to a large extent between different pathogen species. We investigate the hypothesis that the differences in infective doses are explained by the mode of action in the underlying mechanism of pathogenesis: Pathogens with locally acting mechanisms tend to have smaller infective doses than pathogens with distantly acting mechanisms. While empirical evidence tends to support the hypothesis, a formal theoretical explanation has been lacking. We give simple analytical models to gain insight into this phenomenon and also investigate a stochastic, spatially explicit, mechanistic within-host model for toxin-dependent bacterial infections. The model shows that pathogens secreting locally acting toxins have smaller infective doses than pathogens secreting diffusive toxins, as hypothesized. While local pathogenetic mechanisms require smaller infective doses, pathogens with distantly acting toxins tend to spread faster and may cause more damage to the host. The proposed model can serve as a basis for the spatially explicit analysis of various virulence factors also in the context of other problems in infection dynamics.

Model of bacterial toxin-dependent pathogenesis explains infective dose