Table 1.
Pathogens discussed.
| Viruses | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Name | Disease | Disease tropism and pathognomonic symptoms | Dominant pathogen cellular tropism | Dominant pathogen tissue tropism |
| Dengue virus | Dengue | Fever, vomiting and bleeding, rash, muscle, joint and bone pain | Macrophages, dendritic cells (Balsitis et al., 2009) | Lymph nodes and spleen; lung, central nervous system (cerebrum), liver (Balsitis et al., 2009) |
| Epstein–Barr virus (EBV) | Infectious mononucleosis | Fever, sore throat, rash, hepatosplenomegaly | Epithelial cells, B cells (Borza and Hutt-Fletcher, 2002; Shannon-Lowe et al., 2006) | Oropharyngeal epithelium (Shannon-Lowe et al., 2006) |
| Human Cytomegalovirus (HCMV) | HCMV infection | Usually asymptomatic in immunocompetent individuals; congenital damage; various manifestations in immunocompromised adults | Broad tropism, including epithelial and endothelial cells, leukocytes, smooth muscle and hepatocytes (Scrivano et al., 2011; Almanan et al., 2017) | Broad (Scrivano et al., 2011) |
| Hepatitis B virus (HBV) | Hepatitis | Liver damage, liver cirrhosis, liver cancer | Hepatocytes (Tang and McLachlan, 2001) | Liver (Tang and McLachlan, 2001) |
| Hepatitis C virus (HCV) | Hepatitis | Chronic liver disease, liver cirrhosis, liver cancer | Hepatocytes (Neufeldt et al., 2016) | Liver (Neufeldt et al., 2016) |
| Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) | Oral and genital herpes | Oral sores | Epithelial cells, neurons (Khoury-Hanold et al., 2016) | Mouth, genitals (Khoury-Hanold et al., 2016) |
| Herpes simplex virus 2 (HSV-2) | Genital herpes | Genital sores | Epithelial cells, neurons (Khoury-Hanold et al., 2016) | Genitals (Khoury-Hanold et al., 2016) |
| Human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) | AIDS (Acquired immunodeficiency syndrome) | CD4+ T cell depletion, opportunistic infections, opportunistic cancers, fever, sweats, wasting, diarrhea | CD4+ T cells (Ribeiro et al., 2016) | Multiple locations (Feder et al., 2017; Guzzo et al., 2017) |
| Influenza virus | influenza (“flu”) | Fever, headache, fatigue, coughing, runny nose, joint and muscle pain | Airway epithelial cells (Scull et al., 2009) | Airways (Scull et al., 2009) |
| Marburg virus | Hemorrhagic fever | Fever, severe blood loss from multiple sites, inflammation of testicles | Phagocytic cells, Sertoli cells (Coffin et al., 2018) | Multiple locations, including spleen, lymph nodes, liver; persistence in testes (Coffin et al., 2018) |
| Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) | Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) | Fever, cough, difficulty breathing; sometimes diarrhea or vomiting; complications affecting lung and kidney | Lung epithelial cells (Park et al., 2016) | Lung (Park et al., 2016) |
| murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) | Not a human pathogen | Animal model for Herpesviridae infection | Broad tropism, including epithelial and endothelial cells, leukocytes, smooth muscle and hepatocytes (Scrivano et al., 2011; Almanan et al., 2017) | Broad (Almanan et al., 2017) |
| Norovirus | Gastroenteritis | Gastrointestinal symptoms: nausea, vomiting, diarrhea | Intestinal epithelial cells (Lee et al., 2017; Murakami et al., 2020) | Highest in the distal small intestine (Grau et al., 2020) |
| Poliovirus | Poliomyelitis | Flu-like symptoms in mild infection; severe infection: brain and spinal cord symptoms, up to paralysis | Neurons (Ida-Hosonuma et al., 2005) | Spine, brain stem (Ida-Hosonuma et al., 2005) |
| Rhinovirus | Common cold | Nasal congestion, sneezing, cough, sore throat; malaise, fever | Airway epithelial cells, fibroblasts, dendritic cells (Foxman et al., 2015) | Nasal cavity; some lower airway infections possible (Foxman et al., 2015) |
| SARS-CoV-2 | COVID-19 | Primarily respiratory (coughing, difficulty breathing); also gastrointestinal; fever; complications affecting multiple organs | Lung type II pneumocytes, nasal goblet secretory cells, ileal enterocytes (Ziegler et al., 2020) | Airways (Zhu et al., 2020); extra-respiratory involvement also present (Puelles et al., 2020; Xiao et al., 2020; Ziegler et al., 2020) |
| Sindbis virus | Sindbis fever | Malaise, joint pain, rash | Epithelial cells, fibroblasts (Varble et al., 2013) | Broad (Ryman et al., 2000; Varble et al., 2013) |
| Simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) | Not a human pathogen | Model for HIV infection | CD4+ T cells (Stieh et al., 2016) | Broad (Stieh et al., 2016; Feder et al., 2017) |
| Varicella zoster virus | Varicella, Zoster | Skin lesions | T cells, neurons, fibroblasts (Sen et al., 2014) | Usually skin, nerves (Sen et al., 2014) |
| West Nile virus | West Nile fever | Usually asymptomatic; fever, fatigue, joint pain, rash, diarrhea, vomiting; central nervous system symptoms in severe cases | Neurons, phagocytic cells (Suthar et al., 2013) | Skin, spleen, central nervous system (Suthar et al., 2013) |
| Zika virus | Zika virus disease | Often asymptomatic or mild non-specific (fever, muscle pain, rash…); nerve damage (Guillain-Barré syndrome); microcephaly in congenital infection | Neurons, neural progenitors, astrocytes, microglia, Sertoli cells, epithelial cells (Ma et al., 2016; Muffat et al., 2018; Szaba et al., 2018; Hui et al., 2020) | Broad; includes brain, testes, eye, placenta (Hui et al., 2020) |
| Bacteria | ||||
| Name | Disease | Disease tropism and pathognomonic symptoms | Dominant pathogen cellular tropism | Dominant pathogen tissue tropism |
| Borrelia burgdorferi | Lyme disease | Fever, rash, fatigue; can progress to cardiac and central nervous system manifestations and joint pain | Primarily extracellular | Broad (Sertour et al., 2018) |
| Campylobacter jejuni | Campylobacteriosis | Gastrointestinal symptoms: diarrhea | Epithelial cells (Luethy et al., 2017) | Cecum, large intestine (Luethy et al., 2017) |
| Chlamydia trachomatis | Chlamydia | Genital discharge, pain | Epithelial cells (Howe et al., 2019) | Genital organs, lymph nodes, spleen, GI tract (Howe et al., 2019) |
| Citrobacter rodentium | Not a human pathogen | Model for enteropathogenic Escherichia coli (EPEC) and enterohaemorrhagic E. coli (EHEC) | Extracellular | Large intestine (Thaiss et al., 2018) |
| Clostridioides difficile | “C. diff” infection | Gastrointestinal symptoms: diarrhea, stomach pain, nausea; fever | Extracellular | Large intestine (Buffie et al., 2015) |
| Coxiella burnetii | Q fever | Mainly non-specific: fever, aches, malaise, chest or stomach pain, diarrhea, vomiting, cough | Monocytes, macrophages, trophoblasts (Ben Amara et al., 2010) | Broad (Ben Amara et al., 2010) |
| Escherichia coli | food poisoning, urinary tract infections, meningitis (strain-dependent) | Gastrointestinal symptoms: diarrhea, pain, vomiting. Urinary tract symptoms: painful and frequent urination. Meningitis: fever, headache | Extracellular or intracellular (epithelial cells) (Connolly et al., 2015) | Strain-dependent: large intestine, bladder, central nervous system (Connolly et al., 2015; Rajan et al., 2018; Rajan et al., 2020) |
| Listeria monocytogenes | Listeriosis | Fever, diarrhea; in pregnancy: stillbirth, miscarriage, fetal infection; muscle pain, central nervous system manifestations; select localized infections | Epithelial cells (Stavru et al., 2011; Dowd et al., 2020) | Small intestine; liver, spleen, placenta, central nervous system (Pentecost et al., 2006) |
| Mycobacterium tuberculosis | Tuberculosis | Usually respiratory (cough, chest pain); fatigue, weight loss, fever; can also be extrapulmonary | Macrophages (Russell et al., 2019) | Lung (Russell et al., 2019) |
| Neisseria gonorrhoeae | Gonorrhea | Urogenital discharge; pain | Epithelial cells (Roth et al., 2013) | Urogenital tract; can disseminate (Roth et al., 2013) |
| Pseudomonas aeruginosa | P. aeruginosa infection | Variable depending on localization (cough for respiratory P. aeruginosa infection, discharge for wound infections; fever) | Extracellular | Broad (Bachta et al., 2020) |
| Salmonella enterica serovar Typhimurium | Salmonellosis | Gastrointestinal symptoms: diarrhea, stomach pain, fever | Epithelial cells, macrophages (Knodler et al., 2010; Kurtz et al., 2020) | Intestines, gallbladder, liver (Knodler et al., 2010; Kurtz et al., 2020) |
| Shigella | Shigellosis | Gastrointestinal symptoms: diarrhea, stomach pain, fever | Epithelial cells (Du et al., 2016) | Intestines (Koestler et al., 2019) |
| Streptococcus pneumoniae | Pneumococcal disease | Usually respiratory: pain, cough, shortness of breath; central nervous system infections; bacteremia, otitis | Extracellular | Lung, bloodstream, central nervous system, ear (Minhas et al., 2019) |
| Parasites | ||||
| Name | Disease | Disease tropism and pathognomonic symptoms | Dominant pathogen cellular tropism | Dominant pathogen tissue tropism |
| Entamoeba histolytica | Amoebiasis | Gastrointestinal symptoms: diarrhea, pain; invasion to the liver causing liver abscess can occur | Extracellular | Large intestine, liver (Thibeaux et al., 2014; Siqueira-Neto et al., 2018) |
| Leishmania major | Cutaneous leishmaniasis | Skin lesions | Phagocytes (Zhang et al., 2003; Peters et al., 2008) | Skin (Zhang et al., 2003) |
| Leishmania donovani | Visceral leishmaniasis | Fever, hepatosplenomegaly | Phagocytes (Zhang et al., 2003; Peters et al., 2008) | Liver, spleen, bone marrow (Zhang et al., 2003; McCall et al., 2013) |
| Plasmodium falciparum | Malaria | Fever, chills, anemia, cerebral symptoms | Red blood cells (Pal et al., 2016) | Circulation; sequestration in multiple locations, including brain, spleen, lung, placenta (Brugat et al., 2014; Pal et al., 2016) |
| Plasmodium vivax | Malaria | Fever, chills, anemia, cerebral symptoms | Red blood cells (Brugat et al., 2014) | Circulation; sequestration in multiple locations, including liver, lung, spleen (Brugat et al., 2014) |
| Toxoplasma gondii | Toxoplasmosis | Usually asymptomatic; congenital infections; ocular and central nervous system manifestations | Broad in vitro; some in vivo cell type preferences, including neurons (Cabral et al., 2016) | Broad (Saeij et al., 2005); persistence in eye, brain |
| Trypanosoma brucei | Sleeping sickness (African trypanosomiasis) | Central nervous system symptoms: behavioral and motor disturbances, coma; fever, malaise | Extracellular | Central nervous system (McCall and McKerrow, 2014) |
| Trypanosoma cruzi | Chagas disease (American trypanosomiasis) | Cardiomyopathy, megacolon, megaesophagus | Broad in vitro ( Franco et al., 2019 ); myocytes in vivo (Costa et al., 2018) | Persistence primarily in the GI tract; also heart, skin (Lewis et al., 2014; Lewis et al., 2016; Ward et al., 2020) |
| Fungi | ||||
| Name | Disease | Disease tropism and pathognomonic symptoms | Dominant pathogen cellular tropism | Dominant pathogen tissue tropism |
| Aspergillus fumigatus | Aspergillosis | Respiratory: cough, shortness of breath, chest pain; fever; may spread systematically | Extracellular | Lung (Hsu et al., 2018) |
| Prions | ||||
| Name | Disease | Disease tropism and pathognomonic symptoms | Dominant pathogen cellular tropism | Dominant pathogen tissue tropism |
| Prions (PrPSc) | Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy | Neurological: behavioral and motor abnormalities | Neurons | Central nervous system, lymphoid tissue (Béringue et al., 2020) |