0000000000086326
AUTHOR
Stéphanie Bedhomme
Social interactions modulate the virulence of avian malaria infection
There is an increasing understanding of the context-dependent nature of parasite virulence. Variation in parasite virulence can occur when infected individuals compete with conspecifics that vary in infection status; virulence may be higher when competing with uninfected competitors. In vertebrates with social hierarchies, we propose that these competition-mediated costs of infection may also vary with social status. Dominant individuals have greater competitive ability than competing subordinates, and consequently may pay a lower prevalence-mediated cost of infection. In this study we investigated whether costs of malarial infection were affected by the occurrence of the parasite in compet…
Evolutionary Changes after Translational Challenges Imposed by Horizontal Gene Transfer
International audience; Genes acquired by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) may provide the recipient organism with potentially new functions, but proper expression level and integration of the transferred genes in the novel environment are not granted. Notably, transferred genes can differ from the receiving genome in codon usage preferences, leading to impaired translation and reduced functionality. Here, we characterize the genomic and proteomic changes undergone during experimental evolution of Escherichia coli after HGT of three synonymous versions, presenting very different codon usage preference, of an antibiotic resistance gene. The experimental evolution was conducted with and without…
Evolution expérimentale
EA SPE GESTAD BIOME; L'évolution expérimentale consiste à tenter de mener en laboratoire le processus d’évolution afin d’en étudier les règles de fonctionnement sous-jacentes. Les sources de variation dans la réponse sont analysées au cours d’expériences exécutées et répliquées en conditions contrôlées. Cette approche dynamique de l’évolution complète les études habituelles analysant l’évolution a posteriori au moyen de méthodes comparatives ou en étudiant des fossiles. Elle constitue également un pont entre les études conduites dans les conditions naturelles et les simulations réalisées par modélisation mathématique.