14 Sep 2023

How         zit        errbady

Been absolutely slammed in the lab before I travel next week, so we're late and not going in depth today. But wow some absolute bangers out there the last couple weeks. Lots of zoonosis and wildlife epidemiology, theme of this issue. Sorry cancer folks, this one's almost all infection biology.

Engineering is evolution: a perspective on the biological design process. Philosophical musings fromlike-minded synthetic biologists thinking about evolution. Directed evolution is rational engineering. https://osf.io/urq9w

Host functional traits as the nexus for multilevel infection patterns. Short perspective of how host biology and ecology across scales shapes disease ecology. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0169534723002227

Viperin immunity evolved across the tree of life through serial innovations on a conserved scaffold. You share an antiviral defense mechanism with the gunk growing on your teeth, probably. https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.13.557418
Tweetorial: https://twitter.com/MDMlab_Paris/status/1702228421240099171

A short course of antibiotics selects for persistent resistance in the human gut. We used to think resistance after antibiotics was temporary. Nope! https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.04.556257

Coinfection with chytrid genotypes drives divergent infection dynamics reflecting regional distribution patterns. Now this is brilliant. Frog-killer fungus is selected for higher virulence in areas where different lineages overlap and compete with each other. https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-023-05314-y

Reservoir host immunology and life history shape virulence evolution in zoonotic viruses. Models show why are bats full of germs out to kill us. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3002268

Crossing host boundaries: the evolutionary drivers and correlates of viral host jumps. Look at boatloads of viral sequencing, find we're sick and making animals more sick than they make us.  https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.01.555953v1
Tweetorial: https://twitter.com/cedriccstan/status/1699316840349208849

Optimizing the delivery of self-disseminating vaccines in fluctuating wildlife populations. Modeling shows timing is key to success of replicating vaccines when given to changing populations. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pntd.0011018 

The first arriving virus shapes within-host viral diversity during natural epidemics. Field experiments! in plants show the importance of priority effects in outbreaks. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2023.1486

Broad receptor tropism and immunogenicity of a clade 3 sarbecovirus. Non-covid coronaviruses in bats that we should keep an eye on! https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.09.12.557371
Tweetorial: https://twitter.com/veeslerlab/status/1702111775871881446

Importation of Alpha and Delta variants during the SARS-CoV-2 epidemic in Switzerland: Phylogenetic analysis and intervention scenarios. Impressed with the estimates of numbers of independent introductions with models matching data. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.ppat.1011553
Thread: https://twitter.com/firefoxx66/status/1699785294458065024 https://bsky.app/profile/firefoxx66.bsky.social/post/3k6sq2upkpq2f

Deep mutational scans of XBB.1.5 and BQ.1.1 reveal ongoing epistatic drift during SARS-CoV-2 evolution. Epistasis continues to kick butt. Notably, a scan of deletions in Spike RBD. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.09.11.557279v1
Tweetorial: https://twitter.com/tylernstarr/status/1702137362019750163



 


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