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Articles by Michael Lässig
Pre-existing neutralizing antibodies against cattle-transmitted influenza A virus H5N1 are detectable in unexposed individuals
Keywords influenza virus H5N1 highly pathogenic avian influenza clade 2.3.4.4b A/Texas/37/2024 humoral immunity pre-existing antibodies cross-neutralizing antibodies Introduction Sporadic human infections with highly pathogenic avian influenza A virus (HPAIV) H5N1 were first documented by spillover from birds to humans in 1997, followed by repeated outbreaks among birds with a total of 954 human cases leading to 464 deaths (48.6% case-fatality rate) between 2003 and 2024.1 In March 2024, the...
Energy landscapes of peptide-MHC binding
Loading metrics Open Access Peer-reviewed Research Article ? This is an uncorrected proof. Citation: Collesano L, Łuksza M, Lässig M (2024) Energy landscapes of peptide-MHC binding. PLoS Comput Biol 20(9): e1012380. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1012380 Editor: Piero Fariselli, Universita degli Studi di Torino, ITALY Received: March 18, 2024; Accepted: July 31, 2024; Published: September 3, 2024 Copyright: © 2024 Collesano et al.
Nonequilibrium Antigen Recognition during Infections and Vaccinations
Popular Summary B cells are central to the human immune system. These white blood cells create antibodies, which then bind to pathogens to neutralize them. Our immune system has many such cells with different receptors for recognizing a plethora of pathogens. One outstanding question is why just a few activated B-cell lineages mount an appropriate immune response in the face of an exponentially growing pathogen population.
Resource allocation in biochemically structured metabolic networks
Abstract Microbes tune their metabolism to environmental challenges by changing protein expression levels, metabolite concentrations, and reaction rates simultaneously. Here, we establish an analytical model for microbial resource allocation that integrates enzyme biochemistry and the global architecture of metabolic networks.
Energy landscapes of peptide-MHC binding
Abstract Molecules of the Major Histocompatibility Complex (MHC) present short protein fragments peptides on the cell surface, an important step in T cell immune recognition. MHC-I molecules process peptides from intracellular proteins; MHC-II molecules act in antigen-presenting cells and present peptides derived from extracellular proteins. Here we show that the sequence-dependent energy landscapes of MHC-peptide binding encode class-specific nonlinearities (epistasis).
Population immunity predicts evolutionary trajectories of SARS-CoV-2
Highlights • SARS-CoV-2 variants compete on a fitness landscape shaped by population immunity • Immune-induced fitness is computable from genetic, epidemic, and cross-protection data • A fitness model predicts viral frequency changes and predominance shifts • Time-dependent selection windows constrain the antigenic profile of emerging variants Summary The large-scale evolution of the SARS-CoV-2 virus has been marked by rapid turnover of genetic clades.
Steering and controlling evolution — from bioengineering to fighting pathogens - Nature Reviews Genetics
Abstract Control interventions steer the evolution of molecules, viruses, microorganisms or other cells towards a desired outcome. Applications range from engineering biomolecules and synthetic organisms to drug, therapy and vaccine design against pathogens and cancer. In all these instances, a control system alters the eco-evolutionary trajectory of a target system, inducing new functions or suppressing escape evolution.
Immune recognition dynamics of a primary infection
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Antigenic waves of virus-immune coevolution
Research Article Jacopo Marchi, Michael Lässig, View ORCID ProfileAleksandra M. Walczak, and Thierry Mora aLaboratoire de Physique de l’École Normale Supérieure, CNRS, PSL University, Sorbonne Université, and Université de Paris, 75005 Paris, France; bInstitute for Biological Physics, University of Cologne, 50937 Cologne, Germany See allHide authors and affiliations Edited by Daniel S.
Eco-evolutionary control of pathogens
Significance Vaccinations and therapies targeting evolving pathogens aim to curb the pathogen and to steer it toward a controlled evolutionary state. Control is leveraged against the pathogen’s intrinsic evolutionary forces, which in turn, can drive an escape from control. Here, we analyze a simple model of control, in which a host produces antibodies that bind the pathogen.
Horizontal gene transfer overrides mutation in Escherichia coli colonizing the mammalian gut
Significance Colonization of the mammalian gut by trillions of commensal bacteria starts early in life and contributes to host health. However, colonization by pathogens can be the launching pad for infection. Bacterial evolution has been studied mainly under laboratory conditions or in a disease context, but we understand less the evolutionary mechanisms of commensal bacteria in a healthy host microbiome. To fill this gap, we studied real-time gut colonization by Escherichia coli in healthy mice.
Survival of the simplest in microbial evolution
Abstract The evolution of microbial and viral organisms often generates clonal interference, a mode of competition between genetic clades within a population. Here we show how interference impacts systems biology by constraining genetic and phenotypic complexity. Our analysis uses biophysically grounded evolutionary models for molecular phenotypes, such as fold stability and enzymatic activity of genes.
Nature Ecology & Evolution
A look at evolutionary processes on the molecular scale seems to support scepticism on predictability. Molecular evolution is driven by mutations that arise randomly in an individual's genome and act on complicated, in part unknown cellular machinery. The fate of mutations in an evolving population appears similarly complicated. In Fig.
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