Elde Lab department of human genetics UNIVERSITY OF UTAH
people research publications
contact news
pathogen-driven evolution arms races mimicry experimental evolution
"It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place."
Protein surfaces at host-pathogen interfaces often evolve in ways that resemble arms races. This phenomenon of genetic conflict has been described by the Red Queen hypothesis, which posits that antagonistic entities vie for dominance in seesawing battles of ongoing adaptations. Molecular arms races often play out repeatedly at the same interfaces and leave behind some of the strongest signals of natural selection in the genome. These arms races can be discerned using phylogenetic analysis, which can provide novel insights for studying the dynamics of host-pathogen interactions. Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll evolutionary genetics & cell biology