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As most people already know, rabbit populations are not easy to control – they breed quickly and therefore have a serious impact on their environment. This was the case when European settlers introduced the wild European rabbit to Australia in the late 19th century. In 1950, Australian scientists attempted to reduce the size of their population to nearly one billion rabbits. They saw the virus of myxoma, a virus recognized deadly for rabbits at the time, and finally did the same. populations in France and the United Kingdom. However, after a while, mortality rates declined in all three countries and rabbit populations rebounded but were now genetically more resistant to the virus.
Considered "one of the greatest natural experiments in evolution," researchers naturally wanted to learn more. They therefore addressed the genetic basis of adapting rabbit newly resistant to this virus.
In partnership with the University of Cambridge and several other research institutes, Biodesign's researchers at Grant McFadden's Center for Research on Immunotherapy, Vaccines and Virotherapy have validated the role of rabbit-specific genes. to contribute to this acquired resistance. Science.
McFadden's lab has several decades of experience in the myxoma virus and is studying subjects ranging from virus replication in hosts to its potential use in the treatment of cancer. For this project, they were asked to determine whether certain rabbit genes that had changed during the 70 years of exposure to the virus were responsible for the rabbit's acquired resistance to the virus.
"There are rabbits in every population that have evolved at once but independently of each other," McFadden said. "The idea was to sequence examples of many genomes of rabbits from the three locations and see what they have in common, which is what led to this study.We proposed half a dozen common genetic variations Our job was to determine if these gene variants affected this virus in the laboratory. "
While the virus-resistant rabbits survived and were therefore selected, the less pathogenic viruses were also selected from the viral populations. This, combined with the fact that the same trend has been observed in three distinct geographical regions of the world, serves as a concrete example of the co-evolutionary forces that act between viruses and their hosts and allows to determine the genetic basis of this adaptation only. deepens our knowledge of parallel adaptation.
"The host and the virus started to do a genetic dance, it was started more than 70 years ago.For decades, no one knew what was this genetic dance but now we have learned something new from the genomes of the surviving rabbits, "added McFadden.
British researchers were largely responsible for using modern sequencing technology to sequence rabbit genomes in populations and compare them to genomes from previous generations, while McFadden and his lab were tasked with determining if Genes that appeared in all three rabbit populations were correlated with antiviral effects by testing the virus in cell culture. Ana Lemos de Matos and Masmudur Rahman, postdoc and badociate professor of research at McFadden's lab, were respectively responsible for testing the effect of these genes on the myxoma virus.
In doing so, the researchers were able to validate the role of these genes in viral replication and indicated that the selection of a more effective response to interferon as part of the innate immune response to the immune response. Viral infection in rabbits was at stake.
McFadden and his lab believe that one of the key lessons of this study was to prove that co-evolution occurs and can occur soon after new virus-host interactions occur.
"It's probably one of the best examples of coevolution that we know, where the virus is evolving, and the host is evolving, and they are evolving in concert with each other," he said. McFadden. "This is a wonderful example of pure curiosity research, and there may be implications in the long run, but in terms of co-evolution, I can not think of a better example on the planet."
Source of the story:
Material provided by University of the State of Arizona. Note: Content can be changed for style and length.
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