Parasite immune evasion: a momentous molecular war

Current research in immunology shows that parasite evasion of host immunity is ubiquitous and involves a wide range of molecular mechanisms. Furthermore, immune evasion appears to generate a large spectrum of pathogenic effects, such as cytokine storms and inflammation. Understanding the relationships between the beneficial effects of immune evasion and its pathogenic consequences therefore provides a new framework to reassess many of the core questions of the evolutionary ecology of host–parasite interactions, such as the evolution of virulence, immune defence strategies, infective dose and host specificity, and to address questions that thus far could not be satisfactorily analysed.