The Epistemology of Bacterial Virulence Factor Characterization

Jackson, M.; Vineberg, S.; Theis, K.R. The Epistemology of Bacterial Virulence Factor Characterization. Microorganisms 2024, 12, 1272. Jackson, M.; Vineberg, S.; Theis, K.R. The Epistemology of Bacterial Virulence Factor Characterization. Microorganisms 2024, 12, 1272.

Abstract

The field of microbial pathogenesis seeks to identify the agents and mechanisms responsible for disease causation. Since Robert Koch introduced postulates that were used to guide the characterization of microbial pathogens, technological advances have substantially increased the capacity to rapidly identify a causative infectious agent. Research efforts currently focus on causation at the molecular level with a search for virulence factors (VFs) that contribute to different stages of the infectious process. We note that the quest to identify and characterize VFs sometimes lacks scientific rigor, and this suggests a need to examine the epistemology of VF characterization. We took this premise as an opportunity to explore the epistemology of VF characterization. In this perspective, we discuss how the characterization of various gene products that evolved to facilitate bacterial survival in the broader environment have potentially been prematurely mischaracterized as VFs that contribute to pathogenesis in the context of human biology. Examples of the reasoning that can affect misinterpretation, or at least premature assignment of mechanistic causation, are provided. Our aim is to refine categorization of VFs by emphasizing a broader biological view of their origin.

Keywords

bacterial pathogenesis; virulence factor; reasoning errors; philosophy of science; anthropocentric bias

Subject

Biology and Life Sciences, Immunology and Microbiology

Copyright: This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

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