Lucy van Dorp

Oct 19, 2024 | biorxiv.org | Cedric Tan |Marina Escalera-Zamudio |Alexei Yavlinsky |Lucy van Dorp

AbstractPredicting the fitness of mutations in the evolution of pathogens is a long-standing and important, yet largely unsolved problem. In this study, we used SARS-CoV-2 as a model system to explore whether the intrahost diversity of viral infections could provide clues on the relative fitness of single amino acid variants (SAVs).

Jul 19, 2024 | biorxiv.org | Cedric Tan |Lucy van Dorp |Francois Balloux |Marina Escalera Zamudio

AbstractThroughout the evolutionary history of SARS-CoV-2, divergent variants with an unusually high number of novel mutations have repeatedly emerged and displaced other lineages in co-circulation. The latest example is the BA.2.86 Variant Of Interest (VOI), which rapidly outcompeted all other lineages following its detection in late July 2023. Descending sublineages dominated globally by July 2024, at the time of writing this study.

Jun 27, 2024 | biorxiv.org | Meriam Guellil |Lucy van Dorp |Lehti Saag |Owyn Beneker

AbstractHuman betaherpesviruses 6A and 6B are double-stranded DNA viruses, specialised in infecting humans and are best known as the main causative pathogens of the common childhood infection 'sixth disease'. Despite only being discovered in the 1980s, these viruses are speculated to have a much longer and more complex history within the human population than available modern data make clear.

Mar 24, 2024 | nature.com | Lucy van Dorp |Francois Balloux

AbstractMost emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases stem from viruses that naturally circulate in non-human vertebrates. When these viruses cross over into humans, they can cause disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics. While zoonotic host jumps have been extensively studied from an ecological perspective, little attention has gone into characterizing the evolutionary drivers and correlates underlying these events.

Jan 1, 2024 | nature.com | Ruobing Wang |Lucy van Dorp |Francois Balloux

AbstractThe acquisition of exogenous mobile genetic material imposes an adaptive burden on bacteria, whereas the adaptational evolution of virulence plasmids upon entry into carbapenem-resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae (CRKP) and its impact remains unclear. To better understand the virulence in CRKP, we characterize virulence plasmids utilizing a large genomic data containing 1219 K. pneumoniae from our long-term surveillance and publicly accessible databases.