Food web of coinfection inside humans

What is it about?

We used a survey of papers about people with multiple infections to build a network of all the infections reported, the parts of the body being consumed by these infections, and the parts of the body's immune system fighting the infections. We analysed the patterns in the network.

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Why is it important?

Many papers report ways that one infection can impact another infection, but prior to this study we had no overview of which kinds of interactions were most common, and what parts of the human body might be sites of intense interactions. We offer an initial indication that there is more potential for resource-mediated interactions than immune-mediated or direct interactions.