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Evolution as a guide for the discovery of innate immune actors

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 10, pages 385–388 (2026)Cite this article

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Evolutionary genomics is transforming our ability to discover immune actors across the tree of life. By leveraging genomic signatures such as positive selection, remote homology and genomic organization, we can predict immune function of uncharacterized genes across diverse organisms, including humans.

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Fig. 1: Evolutionary signatures of immune-specific evolutionary processes enable discovery of immune actors.

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Acknowledgements

E.M., H.V. and A.B. are supported by the MSD Avenir project “UnaDisc” and ERC Starting Grant (PECAN 101040529).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institut Pasteur, Université Paris-Cité, CNRS UMR3525, Molecular Diversity of Microbes, Paris, France

    Ernest Mordret, Hugo Vaysset & Aude Bernheim

  2. Sorbonne Université, CNRS, Department of Computational, Quantitative and Synthetic Biology, Paris, France

    Ernest Mordret

  3. ERL U1338 Inserm, Paris, France

    Ernest Mordret

  4. AgroParisTech, Université Paris Saclay, Paris, France

    Hugo Vaysset

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  1. Ernest Mordret
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  2. Hugo Vaysset
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  3. Aude Bernheim
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Correspondence to Aude Bernheim.

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Mordret, E., Vaysset, H. & Bernheim, A. Evolution as a guide for the discovery of innate immune actors. Nat Ecol Evol 10, 385–388 (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-026-02980-z

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