Payoffs, not tradeoffs, in the adaptation of a virus to ostensibly conflicting selective pressures.

ABSTRACT: The genetic architecture of many phenotypic traits is such that genes often contribute to multiple traits, and mutations in these genes can therefore affect multiple phenotypes. These pleiotropic interactions often manifest as tradeoffs between traits where improvement in one property entails a cost in another. The life cycles of many pathogens include periods of growth within a host punctuated with transmission events, such as passage through a digestive tract or a passive stage of exposure in the environment. Populations exposed to such fluctuating selective pressures are expected to acquire mutations showing tradeoffs between reproduction within and survival outside of a host. We selected for individual mutations under fluctuating selective pressures for a ssDNA microvirid bacteriophage

SUBMITTER: McGee LW 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4183430 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Oct

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature