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SUMMARY:Searching for the footprints of pathogen presures in the human gen
 ome
DTSTART:20090213T153000
DTSTAMP:20260428T020148Z
UID:028fee287ec3cbdf2324ae16496552b49cc3c13edbc0b8da11a75fc1
CATEGORIES:Conferences - Seminars
DESCRIPTION:Lluis Quintana-Murci\nInferences concerning the action of natu
 ral selection in the human genome provide a powerful tool for predicting r
 egions of the genome potentially associated with disease. This relationshi
 p is evident in the case of infectious diseases\, as\, before the advent o
 f antibiotics and vaccines\, infectious diseases have been paramount among
  the threats to health and survival for most of human evolutionary history
 . To date\, some of the strongest evidence for selection in the human geno
 me has been obtained for human genes involved in the immune response or ho
 st-pathogen interactions. However\, very few studies have investigated the
  extent to which pathogens have exerted selective pressure on the innate i
 mmune system. The genes encoding the Toll-like receptors\, the C-type lect
 ins and the scavenger receptors are the principal innate immunity genes in
 volved in pathogen recognition\, and the crucial roles of the proteins the
 y encode make them ideal targets of natural selection. I will review our m
 ost recent data on natural selection acting on human genes involved in imm
 une-related processes or host-pathogen interactions. These studies\, which
  go from global genomewide scans to more fine-tuned analyses in specific g
 enes or gene families\, highlight how the identification of selected loci 
 or variants of immunity-related genes may provide insight into host genes 
 or pathways playing an important role in pathogen resistance. Finally\, us
 ing the human Toll-like receptor gene family as a paradigm\, I will show h
 ow the integration of our data into a clinical and epidemiological framewo
 rk clearly illustrates the value of adopting an evolutionary perspective t
 o biological questions\, such as the relevance of genes in immunity to inf
 ection.
LOCATION:AI 1153 https://plan.epfl.ch/?room==AI%201153
STATUS:CONFIRMED
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