Abstracts
- 09/01/2012 - V. A. Huynh-Thu
- 09/01/2012 - R. Küffner
- 09/01/2012 - C. Ambroise
- 16/09/2011 - M. Bunster
- 27/04/2011 - P. Meyer
- 06/04/2011 - D. Débois
- 30/03/2011 - J. Wouters
- 28/01/2011 - J.-C. Lambert
- 13/12/2010 - J. Giard
- 17/11/2010 - B. Charloteaux
- 12/05/2010 - P. Soumillion
- 30/04/2010 - J.-P. Vert
- 14/04/2010 - X. Tordoir
- 24/03/2010 - J.C. Voegel
- 17/03/2010 - A. Turtoi
- 24/02/2010 - L. Palmeira
- 27/01/2010 - D. Devos
- 09/12/2009 - F. Heuze
- 25/11/2009 - L. Geris
- 19/11/2009 - V. Gabelica
- 14/10/2009 - G. Zocchi
- 30/09/2009 - K. Van Steen
- 12/06/2009 - D. Gianola
- 05/06/2009 - F. J. Theis
- 02/06/2009 - M. Babu
- 07/05/2009 - J. Eyzaguirre
- 22/04/2009 - E. Bullinger
- 08/04/2009 - F. Francis
- 04/03/2009 - Kick-off
Analysing virus/host interactions and their co-evolution -- the PhEVER database and related projects
Leonor Palmeira, Department of infectious and parasitic diseases, Laboratory of Immunology-Vaccinology, ULg
Date and place: Wednesday February, 24th 12:30 pm at 1/75 (B6c)
Viruses are responsible for a large number of human infectious diseases and are involved in many cancers. Understanding how they interact with their hosts remains a major challenge. We are mainly interested in studying how these complex interactions between several organisms are acquired and maintained throughout evolution in order to shed light on the mechanisms behind viral evolution and viral adaptation. Indeed, these mechanisms are far from being elucidated. Determining, for instance, whether viruses evolve as a pool of interchangeable genetic modules allowing for a rapid evolution is still an open question. Identifying modularity in viral protein evolution as well as identifying modules or genes that could have been horizontally transmitted between viruses and hosts is also a key question.
In order to answer these questions, we are working on (1) determining homologies between viruses and between viruses and their hosts and (2) identifying conserved modules within viral proteins. We have thus constructed a database of families of homologous proteins between all fully sequenced viruses, all fully sequenced bacteria, human and insects vectors of pathogens. Our work aims at providing a comprehensive working tool for virologists wanting to detect sequence homologies and possible gene transfer events affecting viruses. Access to these families is therefore available through the PhEVER database http://pbil.univ-lyon1.fr/databases/phever in which pre-computed alignments and phylogenies are available for the analysis of the history of these families. Further work on the identication of modules inside proteins is still under way. This global approach based on the genomes of all available viruses and bacteria, as well as on the genomes of human and insects vectors of viral pathogens will undoubtebly provide valuable tools for a better understanding of the mechanisms of co-evolution.