On the Biological Success of Viruses

Wasik, Brian R.; Turner, Paul

doi:10.1146/annurev-micro-090110-102833

Cited by 73 publications

(68 citation statements)

References 92 publications

(96 reference statements)

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“…This study adds further incentive for experimental evolution to expand its horizons beyond the standard ecological scenario of a sudden environmental change [3]. Viruses are often evolving in complex host communities that are variable in space and time, and a focus on simple environments may miss important aspects of adaptation to hosts in the natural world [18]. Finally, our results add to a growing number of studies highlighting the importance of epistasis and historical contingency in shaping adaptive walks, and suggest that RNA viruses are a powerful model for studying epistasis going forward.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rate of novel host invasion affects adaptability of evolving RNA virus lineages

Morley¹,

Mendiola²,

Turner³

2015

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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Although differing rates of environmental turnover should be consequential for the dynamics of adaptive change, this idea has been rarely examined outside of theory. In particular, the importance of RNA viruses in disease emergence warrants experiments testing how differing rates of novel host invasion may impact the ability of viruses to adaptively shift onto a novel host. To test whether the rate of environmental turnover influences adaptation, we experimentally evolved 144 Sindbis virus lineages in replicated tissue-culture environments, which transitioned from being dominated by a permissive host cell type to a novel host cell type. The rate at which the novel host 'invaded' the environment varied by treatment. The fitness (growth rate) of evolved virus populations was measured on each host type, and molecular substitutions were mapped via whole genome consensus sequencing. Results showed that virus populations more consistently reached high fitness levels on the novel host when the novel host 'invaded' the environment more gradually, and gradual invasion resulted in less variable genomic outcomes. Moreover, virus populations that experienced a rapid shift onto the novel host converged upon different genotypes than populations that experienced a gradual shift onto the novel host, suggesting a strong effect of historical contingency.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Rate of novel host invasion affects adaptability of evolving RNA virus lineages

Morley¹,

Mendiola²,

Turner³

2015

Proc. R. Soc. B.

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“…Reassortant influenza viruses have been implicated in all past human pandemic strains for which we have sequence data (28)(29)(30)(31), and the ancestry of HIV-1 involved a hybrid simian immunodeficiency virus (32). Hence, knowing how reticulate events shape disease emergence may help the ecology and evolution of infectious disease become a more predictive science, leading to insight important to disease prevention and mitigation (33).…”

Section: Significancementioning

confidence: 99%

Reticulate evolution is favored in influenza niche switching

Hill

Zabilansky

et al. 2016

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Reticulate evolution is thought to accelerate the process of evolution beyond simple genetic drift and selection, helping to rapidly generate novel hybrids with combinations of adaptive traits. However, the long-standing dogma that reticulate evolutionary processes are likewise advantageous for switching ecological niches, as in microbial pathogen host switch events, has not been explicitly tested. We use data from the influenza genome sequencing project and a phylogenetic heuristic approach to show that reassortment, a reticulate evolutionary mechanism, predominates over mutational drift in transmission between different host species. Moreover, as host evolutionary distance increases, reassortment is increasingly favored. We conclude that the greater the quantitative difference between ecological niches, the greater the importance of reticulate evolutionary processes in overcoming niche barriers.ecology | reticulate evolution | influenza | host switch | reassortment

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is a quite surprising situation, because viruses probably constitute the most abundant and diverse biological entities in nature (Rohwer & Barott, 2013;Wasik & Turner, 2013). Viruses also successfully occupy a wide range of niches, are key players in evolutionary and ecological processes (Villarreal 2005;Wasik and Turner 2013), and, last but not least, have long been a matter of concern to medical doctors and epidemiologists. The situation is even more astonishing considering that several biologists have, over the years, produced a rich conceptual reflection on viruses (e.g., Burnet, 1945;Claverie & Abergel, 2010Forterre, 2010a;Koonin & Dolja, 2013;López-García, 2012;Lwoff, 1957;Moreira & López-García, 2009;Raoult & Forterre, 2008;Stanley, 1957;Van Regenmortel, 2003), and the philosophy of microbiology more broadly has blossomed in recent years (O'Malley, 2013(O'Malley, , 2014O'Malley & Dupré, 2007a, 2007b.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%