Barriers to antigenic escape by pathogens: trade-off between reproductive rate and antigenic mutability.

Abstract excerpt

BACKGROUND: A single measles vaccination provides lifelong protection. No antigenic variants that escape immunity have been observed. By contrast, influenza continually evolves new antigenic variants, and the vaccine has to be updated frequently with new strains. Both measles and influenza are RNA viruses with high mutation rates, so the mutation rate alone cannot explain the differences in antigenic variability....

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