Estimating viral bottleneck sizes for FMDV transmission within and between hosts and implications for the rate of viral evolution.

ABSTRACT: RNA viruses exist as populations of closely related genomes, characterized by a high diversity of low-frequency variants. As viral genomes from one population disperse to establish new sites of replication, the fate of these low-frequency variants depends to a large extent on the size of the founding population. Focusing on foot-and-mouth disease virus (FMDV) we conjecture that variants are more likely to be transmitted through wide bottlenecks, but more likely to approach fixation in new populations following narrow bottlenecks; therefore, the longer-term rate of accumulation of 'nearly neutral' variants at high frequencies is likely to be inversely related to the bottleneck size. We examine this conjecture in vivo by estimating bottleneck sizes relating 'parent' and 'daughter' pop

SUBMITTER: Orton RJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6936012 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Feb

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature