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Table 1 A list of conditions required for the evolution of mechanisms of “microbiome mutiny”

From: The microbiome mutiny hypothesis: can our microbiome turn against us when we are old or seriously ill?

Condition

Significance

Evidence

Trade-off between rate of transmissibility (infectiousness) and host life span

Required to make “optimal virulence” dependent on the background rate of host mortality

Symptoms (morbidity) can aid transmission: diarrhea, coughs, bacteriuria

Detection of host health (mortality)

Required to sense changes in the selection regime (due to changing host mortality)

Bacterial sensing of host stress molecules turns on virulence phenotype [27]

Alternating selection regimes (mortality pattern) in the host population

Required to impose selection pressure from both regimes (favoring low and high virulence)

Extended aging in humans

Variability of microbiome composition among connected host individuals

Required to make between-host spread (strongly) dependent on instantaneous transmissibility

Large compositional variability in the human population [11], even within families [32]