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Antigenic Variation

"Antigenic Variation" is a descriptor in the National Library of Medicine's controlled vocabulary thesaurus, MeSH (Medical Subject Headings). Descriptors are arranged in a hierarchical structure, which enables searching at various levels of specificity.

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Change in the surface ANTIGEN of a microorganism. There are two different types. One is a phenomenon, especially associated with INFLUENZA VIRUSES, where they undergo spontaneous variation both as slow antigenic drift and sudden emergence of new strains (antigenic shift). The second type is when certain PARASITES, especially trypanosomes, PLASMODIUM, and BORRELIA, survive the immune response of the host by changing the surface coat (antigen switching). (From Herbert et al., The Dictionary of Immunology, 4th ed)


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This graph shows the total number of publications written about "Antigenic Variation" by people in this website by year, and whether "Antigenic Variation" was a major or minor topic of these publications.
Bar chart showing 17 publications over 13 distinct years, with a maximum of 2 publications in 2010 and 2012 and 2015 and 2016
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