Nonrandom segregation of parental alleles in reovirus reassortants

To test for nonrandom segregations among their 10 genomic RNA segments, we examined a set of 83 reassortants derived from mammalian reovirus type 1 Lang and type 3 Dearing. After confirming the genotypes of the reassortants, we performed statistical analyses on the distributions of parental alleles for each of the 10 gene segments, as well as for the 45 possible pairings of the 10 segments. The analyses revealed nonrandom associations of parental alleles in the L1-L2, L1-M1, L1-S1, and L3-S1 segment pairs, at levels indicating high statistical significance (P < 0.005). Such associations may reflect specific interactions between viral components (protein-protein, protein-RNA, or RNA-RNA) and may influence both the evolution of reoviruses in nature and their genetic analysis in the laboratory. The data may also support an hypothesis that reovirus reassortants commonly contain mutations that improve their fitness for independent replication.