Implicit Information in Eukaryotic Pathogens as the Basis of Antigenic Variation

Abstract

Abstract Eukaryotic pathogens, such as trypanosomes, imply far more antigenic variability than is encoded explicitly in their genome, thus enabling them to provide an everchanging and effective challenge to the host immune system. By the use of gene fragments and pseudogenes combinatorially to generate novel genes, trypanosomes can, in theory, generate a number of surface antigens significantly greater than the total number of genes in the genome.