Rapid evolution of RNA viruses with mRNA-sense genomes is a major concern to health and economic welfare because of the devastating diseases these viruses inflict on humans, animals, and plants. To test whether host genes can affect the evolution of RNA viruses, we used a Saccharomyces cerevisiae single-gene deletion library, which includes approximately 80% of yeast genes, in RNA recombination...

Effective immunization against hepatitis C virus (HCV) infections is likely to require the induction of both robust T and B cell immunity. Although neutralizing antibodies may play an important role in control of infection, there is little understanding of the structure of the HCV envelope glycoproteins and how they interact with such antibodies. An additional challenge for vaccine design is th...

The hypothesis that Mutual Information (MI) dendrograms of influenza A viruses reflect informational groups generated during viral evolutionary processes is put forward. Phylogenetic reconstructions are used for guidance and validation of MI dendrograms. It is found that MI profiles display an oscillatory behavior for each of the eight RNA segments of influenza A. It is shown that dendrograms o...

A novel form of biological control is being applied to the dengue virus. The agent is the maternally transmitted bacterium Wolbachia, naturally absent from the main dengue vector, the mosquito Aedes aegypti. Three Wolbachia-based control strategies have been proposed. One is suppression of mosquito populations by large-scale releases of males incompatible with native females; this intervention ...

The asymptomatic phase of HIV-1 infections is characterised by a stable set-point viral load (SPVL) within patients. The SPVL is a strong predictor of disease progression and shows considerable variation of multiple orders of magnitude between patients. Recent studies have found that the SPVL in donor and recipient pairs is strongly correlated indicating that the virus genotype strongly influen...

Mountain lions (Puma concolor) throughout North and South America are infected with puma lentivirus clade B (PLVB). A second, highly divergent lentiviral clade, PLVA, infects mountain lions in southern California and Florida. Bobcats (Lynx rufus) in these two geographic regions are also infected with PLVA, and to date, this is the only strain of lentivirus identified in bobcats. We sequenced fu...

Experimental evolution is one approach used to address a broad range of questions related to evolution and adaptation to strong selection pressures. Experimental evolution of diverse microbial and viral systems has routinely been used to study new traits and behaviors and also to dissect mechanisms of rapid evolution. This protocol describes the practical aspects of experimental evolution with ...

We determined nucleotide sequences of the VP1 and 2AB genes and portions of the 2C and 3D genes of two evolving poliovirus lineages: circulating wild viruses of T geotype and Sabin vaccine-derived isolates from an immunodeficient patient. Different regions of the viral RNA were found to evolve nonsynchronously, and the rate of evolution of the 2AB region in the vaccine-derived population was no...

There is evidence that HIV-1 evolution under maraviroc (MVC) pressure can lead to the selection of either X4-tropic variants and/or R5-tropic, MVC-resistant isolates. However, the viral dynamics of HIV-1 variants in patients with virological failure (VF) on MVC-containing regimens remain poorly studied. Here, we investigated the V3 loop evolution of HIV-1 on MVC in relation to coreceptor usage ...