Talk:Antigenic variation

drift, shift, rift, etc

I can find no evidence that the categories of antigenic variation listed under viruses (antigenic drift, shift, rift lift, sift, and gift) are called by these names anywhere but here. Does anyone know where this comes from? Logophile59 (talk) 21:05, 12 May 2019 (UTC)

Someone just made that up.  Drift and shift are in the literature.  The other ones are not.  Dabs (talk) 17:18, 29 August 2019 (UTC)

Remove immune evasion topics that are not in the category of antigenic variation

"Antigenic variation" sounds very generic but this term actually is used with a narrow meaning, referring to mutation systems with specific mechanisms that result in enhanced antigenic variability. Thus it is applied to Trypanosomes, Plasmodium, and Borrelia, for instance, which have elaborate shuffling schemes. But simply having a high genomic mutation rate is not called "antigenic variaton" in the literature.

The more general term is "immune evasion" or "immune escape." When a microbe masks its outer surface, this is a strategy of immune evasion but not a case of antigenic variation.

So, the current version of this article starts out with antigenic variation, but then diverges into the more general topic of immune evasion.

Some useful references:

• Wisniewski-Dye F, Vial L. 2008. Phase and antigenic variation mediated by genome modifications. Antonie Van Leeuwenhoek 94:493-515.
• van der Woude MW, Baumler AJ. 2004. Phase and antigenic variation in bacteria. Clin Microbiol Rev 17:581-611, table of contents.
• Palmer GH, Bankhead T, Seifert HS. 2016. Antigenic Variation in Bacterial Pathogens. Microbiol Spectr 4.
• Horn D. 2014. Antigenic variation in African trypanosomes. Mol Biochem Parasitol 195:123-129.
• Barry JD, Hall JP, Plenderleith L. 2012. Genome hyperevolution and the success of a parasite. Ann N Y Acad Sci 1267:11-17.

I will try to improve this at a later date, or find someone else to do it. Dabs (talk) 17:18, 29 August 2019 (UTC)