This paper has "misunderstandings" in an alliterative title, making it a sure-fire winner, despite verbosity.
Virus geeks will be familiar with the concept of endogenous viruses, and the advantages of heterogeneity in MHC selection are probably also familiar to most medical students. This paper, however, discusses the drive given to MHC diversity caused by the variety of pathogens a population is exposed to. This is really the teeth on the gears of epidemiology with regard to immunogenomics, and something worth thinking about. Population diversity increases in reaction to new pathogens, as novel selection forces influence the advantageousness of minority (or de novo!) alleles. It also gives some basic information about how genomics are assessed to establish the age of an allele, and also how the mechanisms of pathogen-mediated selection cannot easily be differentiated by researchers. Though the thrust of this paper might be a technically minded one about the state of the art, in passing it is a good primer for the uninitated.
Good learning, and, post champagne, Happy New Year (see last post)
Rohan
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