Prevalence of epistasis in the evolution of influenza A surface proteins.

ABSTRACT: The surface proteins of human influenza A viruses experience positive selection to escape both human immunity and, more recently, antiviral drug treatments. In bacteria and viruses, immune-escape and drug-resistant phenotypes often appear through a combination of several mutations that have epistatic effects on pathogen fitness. However, the extent and structure of epistasis in influenza viral proteins have not been systematically investigated. Here, we develop a novel statistical method to detect positive epistasis between pairs of sites in a protein, based on the observed temporal patterns of sequence evolution. The method rests on the simple idea that a substitution at one site should rapidly follow a substitution at another site if the sites are positively epistatic. We apply this meth

SUBMITTER: Kryazhimskiy S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3040651 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature