The state of latency in microbial pathogenesis
Liise-anne Pirofski1 and Arturo Casadevall2
1Division of Infectious Diseases, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York, USA.
2Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Address correspondence to: Liise-anne Pirofski, Division of Infectious Diseases, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, New York 10461, USA. Phone: 718.430.2940; Email: l.pirofski@einsteinmed.org. Or to: Arturo Casadevall, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Room E5132, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Phone: 410-955-3457; Email: acasade1@jhu.edu.
Find articles by Pirofski, L. in: JCI | PubMed | Google Scholar
1Division of Infectious Diseases, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, Bronx, New York, USA.
2Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, USA.
Address correspondence to: Liise-anne Pirofski, Division of Infectious Diseases, Albert Einstein College of Medicine and Montefiore Medical Center, 1300 Morris Park Avenue, Bronx, New York 10461, USA. Phone: 718.430.2940; Email: l.pirofski@einsteinmed.org. Or to: Arturo Casadevall, Department of Molecular Microbiology and Immunology, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, 615 N. Wolfe Street, Room E5132, Baltimore, Maryland, USA. Phone: 410-955-3457; Email: acasade1@jhu.edu.
Find articles by
Casadevall, A.
in:
JCI
|
PubMed
|
Google Scholar
|
First published August 17, 2020 - More info
J Clin Invest. 2020;130(9):4525–4531. https://doi.org/10.1172/JCI136221.
© 2020 American Society for Clinical Investigation
The state of latency occurs when a microbe’s persistence in a host produces host damage without perturbing homeostasis sufficiently to cause clinical symptoms or disease. The mechanisms contributing to latency are diverse and depend on the nature of both the microbe and the host. Latency has advantages for both host and microbe. The host avoids progressive damage caused by interaction with the microbe that may translate into disease, and the microbe secures a stable niche in which to survive. Latency is clinically important because some latent microbes can be transmitted to other hosts, and it is associated with a risk for recrudescent microbial growth and development of disease. In addition, it can predispose the host to other diseases, such as malignancies. Hence, latency is a temporally unstable state with an eventual outcome that mainly depends on host immunity. Latency is an integral part of the pathogenic strategies of microbes that require human (and/or mammalian) hosts, including herpesviruses, retroviruses, Mycobacterium tuberculosis, and Toxoplasma gondii. However, latency is also an outcome of infection with environmental organisms such as Cryptococcus neoformans, which require no host in their replicative cycles. For most microbes that achieve latency, there is a need for a better understanding and more investigation of host and microbial mechanisms that result in this state.
- Purchase this article
- $10
- Purchasing this article will give you full access for the calendar year.
- Purchase Site Pass
- $25
- This will give you access to every article on the site for 24 hours.
- Online subscription
- $95
- Individual online subscriptions give you full online access for the calendar year.
- Individual online subscriptions ordered from September 1st on will receive access for the remainder of current year as well as for the full following year subscription term.
- JCI This Month subscription
- $135
- JCI This Month is a 16- to 20-page overview of the articles published each month
- Subscribing to JCI This Month also gives subscribers full online access for the calendar year.
- *Price outside U.S. and Canada: $195.
Copyright © 2020 American Society for Clinical Investigation
ISSN: 0021-9738 (print), 1558-8238 (online)