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Pairwise Growth Competition Assay for Determining the Replication Fitness of Human Immunodeficiency Viruses

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Published on: May 4, 2015

Quantifying the phylodynamic forces driving papillomavirus evolution.

Marc Gottschling¹, Markus Göker, Alexandros Stamatakis

¹Department of Biology, Systematic Botany and Mycology, Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Germany.

Molecular Biology and Evolution

|February 3, 2011

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Papillomaviruses (PVs) and mammalian hosts do not always evolve together, challenging the idea of strict codivergence. While global analysis rejected independent evolution, local studies revealed diverse evolutionary paths including transmission events.

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Area of Science:

Evolutionary biology
Virology
Genomics

Background:

Pathogen-host associations are shaped by complex evolutionary processes like codivergence and lateral transfer.
Mammalian papillomaviruses (PVs) are widespread DNA viruses, making them ideal for studying virus-host evolutionary dynamics.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the evolutionary dynamics of mammalian PVs and their hosts.
To test for codivergence between PVs and their mammalian hosts using phylogenetic congruence.

Main Methods:

Construction of robust phylogenies for both PVs and their mammalian hosts.
Application of statistical approaches to assess topological and branch-length congruence between virus and host phylogenies.
Analysis of virus-host associations globally and locally within major PV clades.

Main Results:

Mammalian PVs formed four major clades with overlapping host ranges.
The hypothesis of independent PV and host evolution was rejected globally (P=0.0001), but only 43% of individual associations were significant.
Codivergence explained approximately one-third of evolutionary events; local analyses revealed numerous independent congruencies and evidence of interspecies transmission.

Conclusions:

PV evolution is characterized by an early radiation followed by clade-specific codivergence events.
Interspecies transmission and other alternative evolutionary events are significant drivers of PV diversification, challenging the notion of strict host specificity and codivergence.