Ongoing phenotypic and genomic changes in experimental coevolution of RNA bacteriophage Qβ and Escherichia coli.

ABSTRACT: According to the Red Queen hypothesis or arms race dynamics, coevolution drives continuous adaptation and counter-adaptation. Experimental models under simplified environments consisting of bacteria and bacteriophages have been used to analyze the ongoing process of coevolution, but the analysis of both parasites and their hosts in ongoing adaptation and counter-adaptation remained to be performed at the levels of population dynamics and molecular evolution to understand how the phenotypes and genotypes of coevolving parasite-host pairs change through the arms race. Copropagation experiments with Escherichia coli and the lytic RNA bacteriophage Qβ in a spatially unstructured environment revealed coexistence for 54 days (equivalent to 163-165 replication generations of Qβ) and fitness analy

SUBMITTER: Kashiwagi A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3150450 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature