| Description | YES
attenuated
NO
This property is the ability of an organism to establish infection that causes some type of illness in individuals with at least minimally functioning immune systems. Excluded from the YES state are non-pathogenic strains of otherwise pathogenic species, producers of food toxins that cannot themselves establish infection, and lab strains known to be attenuated. attenuated refers to strains known to have lost a critical element of pathogenesis, such as the ability to produce a capsule. This property does not, at present, distinguish harmless commensals from species never found in or on the human body, both of which are designated NO. The three states employed so far (YES, ATTENUATED, NO) do not address normally harmless bacteria that cause opportunistic infection in severely immunocompromised people only; for the latter group, the term OPPORTUNISTIC may be introduced. |
