Within-host competition between strains of a vector-borne pathogen can affect strain frequencies …

• Abstract
• Background
• Results
• Discussion
• Conclusion
• Methods
• Miscellaneous
• References
• Table 1
• Table 2
• Table 3
• Figures

Our results demonstrate that competition between serotypes can affect virus titers in mixed infections in mosquito cells, suggesting that competitive suppression could act to decrease transmission. To better understand the role of inter-serotype competition in emergence of dengue, future research should aim to identify predictor variables of suppression, to examine the effects of mixed-serotype infections on replication throughout both stages of the virus life cycle (vector and host), and to quantify these effects in an epidemiological framework. It would also be useful to examine these effects in live mosquitoes. Recent studies of single strain infections in Aedes aegypti have highlighted that viruses must replicate in, and disseminate to, several different vector tissues before infecting the salivary glands and disseminating to the saliva for transmission [39,49]. The nature of this pathway and our finding that competitive abilities were uncoupled from performance in single infections highlight that there is potential for interaction effects between serotypes at several stages during vector infection, which could complicate prediction of the effects of mixed serotype infection. Lastly, our results underscore that within-host competition in the mosquito vector may have dramatic effects on both emergence and long-term virus persistence, and these potential effects should be explored in the context of other important factors of dengue virulence such as the host immune system.