Exploring the complexity of the HIV-1 fitness landscape.

ABSTRACT: Although fitness landscapes are central to evolutionary theory, so far no biologically realistic examples for large-scale fitness landscapes have been described. Most currently available biological examples are restricted to very few loci or alleles and therefore do not capture the high dimensionality characteristic of real fitness landscapes. Here we analyze large-scale fitness landscapes that are based on predictive models for in vitro replicative fitness of HIV-1. We find that these landscapes are characterized by large correlation lengths, considerable neutrality, and high ruggedness and that these properties depend only weakly on whether fitness is measured in the absence or presence of different antiretrovirals. Accordingly, adaptive processes on these landscapes depend sensitively o

SUBMITTER: Kouyos RD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3297571 | biostudies-literature | 2012

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature