title: Taeniid history, natural selection and antigenic diversity: evolutionary theory meets helminthology.
abstract: Large sets of nucleotide sequence data of parasitic helminths have been accumulated in the past two decades. Our ability to improve the health of people and animals using this knowledge has not increased proportionally, however. Evolutionary biology provides the background to understand how parasites adapt to their hosts, and computational molecular biology offers the tools to infer the mechanisms involved. The study of antigenic diversity, a way for parasites to overcome host defenses against parasites, has been neglected in helminths, yet such a study could contribute to the development of more efficient drugs, diagnostic tests and vaccines. This review focuses on the study of adaptive evolution as the cause of antigenic diversity in tapeworms and its potential applications.
authors.affiliation: Departamento de Genética, Instituto de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul, Porto Alegre, 91501-970 RS, Brazil. karen.haag@ufrgs.br
authors.forename: Karen L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Haag
authors.forename: Bruno
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gottstein
authors.forename: Francisco J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: Ayala
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000818:Animals; D000940:Antigenic Variation; D019295:Computational Biology; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D015801:Helminth Proteins / Q000235:genetics; D006790:Host-Parasite Interactions; D006801:Humans; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D013621:Taenia / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology*
chemical_list: D015801:Helminth Proteins