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PARASITE PATHOGENESIS

O-h what a surprise

What evolutionary strategies are used by parasites to flourish for long periods within their mammalian hosts? These are questions that have been addressed by Pinger et al. in a recent study that identifies variable O-glycosylation as a novel immune-evasion mechanism employed by African trypanosomes.

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Fig. 1: Representation of the origins of variation in VSGs.

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Correspondence to Mark Carrington.

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Carrington, M., Higgins, M.K. O-h what a surprise. Nat Microbiol 3, 856–857 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-018-0211-x

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