National Institute of Immunology

Selection favors cost-ordered adaptive mutational paths in a stress-magnitude-dependent manner

Abstract Chronic exposure to stress requires adaptive strategies beyond canonical regulatory mechanisms. Stress varies, both qualitatively and quantitatively, across physiological niches and exerts distinct selection pressures on colonizing bacteria. Bacteria employ diverse defen...

Immunologic insights into the critical epitopes of HIV-1 and structure-based characterization of cross-reactive antibodies

Abstract HIV-1 escape from neutralizing antibodies even in the presence of strong host immunity is associated with variations in envelope proteins that drive antigenic diversification. The virus exploits the error-prone nature of reverse transcriptase and the high mutation rate a...