Summary Marine stickleback fish have colonized and adapted to innumerable streams and lakes formed since the last ice age, providing an exceptional opportunity to characterize genomic mechanisms underlying repeated ecological adaptation in nature. Here we develop a high quality reference genome assembly for threespine sticklebacks. By sequencing the genomes of 20 additional individuals from a global set of marine and freshwater populations, we identify a genome-wide set of loci that are consistently associated with marine-freshwater divergence. Our results suggest that reuse of globally-shared standing genetic variation, including chromosomal inversions, plays an important role in repeated evolution of distinct marine and freshwater sticklebacks, and in the maintenance of divergent ecotypes during early stages of reproductive isolation. Both coding and regulatory changes occur in the set of loci underlying marine-freshwater evolution, with regulatory changes likely predominating in this classic example of repeated adaptive evolution in nature.

Highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART) can control HIV-1 replication, but suboptimal treatment allows for the evolution of resistance and rebound viremia. A comparative measure of antiviral activity under clinically relevant conditions would guide drug development and the selection of regimens that maximally suppress replication. Here we show that current measures of antiviral activity, including IC(50) and inhibitory quotient, neglect a key dimension, the dose-response curve slope. Using infectivity assays with wide dynamic range, we show that this slope has noteworthy effects on antiviral activity. Slope values are class specific for antiviral drugs and define intrinsic limitations on antiviral activity for some classes. Nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors and integrase inhibitors have slopes of approximately 1, characteristic of noncooperative reactions, whereas non-nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors, protease inhibitors and fusion inhibitors unexpectedly show slopes >1. Instantaneous inhibitory potential (IIP), the log reduction in single-round infectivity at clinical drug concentrations, is strongly influenced by slope and varies by >8 logs for anti-HIV drugs. IIP provides a more accurate measure of antiviral activity and in general correlates with clinical outcomes. Only agents with slopes >1 achieve high-level inhibition of single-round infectivity, a finding with profound implications for drug and vaccine development.

In untreated human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1) infection, most viral genomes in resting CD4؉ T cells are not integrated into host chromosomes. This unintegrated virus provides an inducible latent reservoir because cellular activation permits integration, virus gene expression, and virus production. It remains controversial whether HIV-1 is stable in this preintegration state. Here, we monitored the fate of HIV-1 in resting CD4؉ cells by using a green fluorescent protein (GFP) reporter virus carrying an X4 envelope. After virus entry into resting CD4؉ T cells, both rescuable virus gene expression, visualized with GFP, and rescuable virion production, assessed by p24 release, decayed with a half-life of 2 days. In these cells, reverse transcription goes to completion over 2 to 3 days, and 50% of the viruses that have entered undergo functional decay before reverse transcription is complete. We distinguished two distinct but closely related factors contributing to loss of rescuable virus. First, some host cells undergo virus-induced apoptosis upon viral entry, thereby reducing the amount of rescuable virus. Second, decay processes directly affecting the virus both before and after the completion of reverse transcription contribute to the loss of rescuable virus. The functional half-life of full-length, integration-competent reverse transcripts is only 1 day. We propose that rapid intracellular decay processes compete with early steps in viral replication in infected CD4 ؉ T cells. Decay processes dominate in resting CD4؉ T cells as a result of the slow kinetics of reverse transcription and blocks at subsequent steps. Therefore, the reservoir of unintegrated HIV-1 in recently infected resting CD4 ؉ T cells is highly labile.

Human immunodeficiency virus type 1 (HIV-1)-infected individuals who develop drug-resistant virus during antiretroviral therapy may derive benefit from continued treatment for two reasons. First, drug-resistant viruses can retain partial susceptibility to the drug combination. Second, therapy selects for drug-resistant viruses that may have reduced replication capacities relative to archived, drug-sensitive viruses. We developed a novel single-cell-level phenotypic assay that allows these two effects to be distinguished and compared quantitatively. Patient-derived gag-pol sequences were cloned into an HIV-1 reporter virus that expresses an endoplasmic reticulum-retained Env-green fluorescent protein fusion. Flow cytometric analysis of single-round infections allowed a quantitative analysis of viral replication over a 4-log dynamic range. The assay faithfully reproduced known in vivo drug interactions occurring at the level of target cells. Simultaneous analysis of single-round infections by wild-type and resistant viruses in the presence and absence of the relevant drug combination divided the benefit of continued nonsuppressive treatment into two additive components, residual virus susceptibility to the drug combination and selection for drug-resistant variants with diminished replication capacities. In some patients with drug resistance, the dominant circulating viruses retained significant susceptibility to the combination. However, in other cases, the dominant drug-resistant viruses showed no residual susceptibility to the combination but had a reduced replication capacity relative to the wild-type virus. In this case, simplification of the regimen might still allow adequate suppression of the wild-type virus. In a third pattern, the resistant viruses had no residual susceptibility to the relevant drug regimen but nevertheless had a replication capacity equivalent to that of wild-type virus. In such cases, there is no benefit to continued treatment. Thus, the ability to simultaneously analyze residual susceptibility and reduced replication capacity of drug-resistant viruses may provide a basis for rational therapeutic decisions in the setting of treatment failure.

The polymerase of the influenza virus is part of the key machinery necessary for viral replication. However, the avian influenza virus polymerase is restricted in mammalian cells. The cellular protein ANP32A has been recently found to interact with viral polymerase and to influence both polymerase activity and interspecies restriction. We report here that either human ANP32A or ANP32B is indispensable for human influenza A virus RNA replication. The contribution of huANP32B is equal to that of huANP32A, and together they play a fundamental role in the activity of human influenza A virus polymerase, while neither human ANP32A nor ANP32B supports the activity of avian viral polymerase. Interestingly, we found that avian ANP32B was naturally inactive, leaving avian ANP32A alone to support viral replication. Two amino acid mutations at sites 129 to 130 in chicken ANP32B lead to the loss of support of viral replication and weak interaction with the viral polymerase complex, and these amino acids are also crucial in the maintenance of viral polymerase activity in other ANP32 proteins. Our findings strongly support ANP32A and ANP32B as key factors for both virus replication and adaptation. IMPORTANCE The key host factors involved in the influenza A viral polymerase activity and RNA replication remain largely unknown. We provide evidence here that ANP32A and ANP32B from different species are powerful factors in the maintenance of viral polymerase activity. Human ANP32A and ANP32B contribute equally to support human influenza viral RNA replication. However, unlike avian ANP32A, the avian ANP32B is evolutionarily nonfunctional in supporting viral replication because of a mutation at sites 129 and 130. These sites play an important role in ANP32A/ANP32B and viral polymerase interaction and therefore determine viral replication, suggesting a novel interface as a potential target for the development of anti-influenza strategies.

The multifunctional movement protein (MP) of Tomato mosaic tobamovirus (ToMV) is involved in viral cell-to-cell movement, symptom development, and resistance gene recognition. However, it remains to be elucidated how ToMV  MP plays such diverse roles in plants. Here, we show that ToMV  MP interacts with the Rubisco small subunit (RbCS) of Nicotiana benthamiana in vitro and in vivo. In susceptible N. benthamiana plants, silencing of NbRbCS enabled ToMV to induce necrosis in inoculated leaves, thus enhancing virus local infectivity. However, the development of systemic viral symptoms was delayed. In transgenic N. benthamiana plants harboring Tobacco mosaic virus resistance-22 (Tm-22), which mediates extreme resistance to ToMV, silencing of NbRbCS compromised Tm-22-dependent resistance. ToMV was able to establish efficient local infection but was not able to move systemically. These findings suggest that NbRbCS plays a vital role in tobamovirus movement and plant antiviral defenses.

DYF-1 is a highly conserved protein. Our results demonstrate that DYF-1 is a canonical subunit of IFT particle complex B and strongly support the hypothesis that the IFT machinery has species- and tissue-specific variations with functional ramifications.

Gary Peltz, Jeffrey Glenn, and colleagues report that a pre-clinical mouse toxicology model can detect liver toxicity of a drug that caused liver failure in several early clinical trial participants in 1993. Please see later in the article for the Editors' Summary