Interplay between Attenuation- and Virulence-Factors of Babesia bovis and Their Contribution to the Establishment of Persistent Infections in Cattle
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Bovine babesiosis is an acute and persistent tick-borne global disease caused mainly by the intraerythrocytic apicomplexan parasites Babesia bovis and B. bigemina. B. bovis infected erythrocytes sequester in blood capillaries of the host (cytoadhesion), causing malaria-like neurological signs. Cytoadhesion and antigenic variation in B. bovis are linked to the expression of members of the Variant Erythrocyte Surface Antigen (VESA) gene family. Animals that survive acute B. bovis infection and those vaccinated with attenuated strains remain persistently infected, suggesting that B. bovis parasites use immune escape mechanisms. However, attenuated B. bovis parasites do not cause neurological signs in vaccinated animals, indicating that virulence or attenuation factors play roles in modulating parasite virulence phenotypes. Artificial overexpression of the SBP2t11 protein, a defined attenuation factor, was associated with reduced cytoadhesion, suggesting a role for this protein as a key modulator of virulence in the parasite. Hereby, we propose a model that might be functional in the modulation of B. bovis virulence and persistence that relies on the interplay among SBP2t, VESA proteins, cytoadhesion, and the immune responses of the host. Elucidation of mechanisms used by the parasite to establish persistent infection will likely contribute to the design of new methods for the control of bovine babesiosis.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.002 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Research integrity | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.002 | 0.001 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".