Genomic evolution of vesicular stomatitis virus strains with differences in adaptability.

ABSTRACT: Virus strains with a history of repeated genetic bottlenecks frequently show a diminished ability to adapt compared to strains that do not have such a history. These differences in adaptability suggest differences in either the rate at which beneficial mutations are produced, the effects of beneficial mutations, or both. We tested these possibilities by subjecting four populations (two controls and two mutants with lower adaptabilities) to multiple replicas of a regimen of positive selection and then determining the fitnesses of the progeny through time and the changes in the consensus, full-length sequences of 56 genomes. We observed that at a given number of passages, the overall fitness gains observed for control populations were larger than fitness gains in mutant populations. However,

SUBMITTER: Novella IS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2863795 | biostudies-literature | 2010 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature