| Description | A pathogen is an organism which has the ability to live in conjunction with a host organism and under some circumstances cause detriment to that host. An intrinsic pathogen is one which has specific features which have evolved to damage the host and/or avoid host defenses so as to 1) allow colonization of otherwise healthy individuals, 2) allow access to tissues, cells or sub-cellular comartments which would otherwise be beyond reach and/or 3) promote improved dissemination of viable pathogenic cells or spores to new hosts through the symptoms of the disease state. An intrinsic pathogen is capable of causing a disease state in otherwise healthy, nominally normal host individuals. The disease state can be considered to be part of the normal life cycle of an intrinsic pathogen. An intrinsic pathogen may have a long latent period in which the host is asymptomatic, or may fail to cause disease in a significant proportion of a host population due to successful immune responses. This is in contrast to opportunistic pathogens which exploit existing weaknesses such as a compromised immune system. Intrinsic pathogens may be associated with disease outbreaks. |
