The interaction of man with viral agents was possibly a key factor shaping human evolution, culture and civilization from its outset. Evidence of the effect of disease, since the early stages of human speciation, through pre-historical times to the present suggest that the types of viruses associated with man changed in time. As human populations progressed technologically, they grew in numbers...

The innate immune system provides the first line of host defense to pathogens. Part of this response is mediated by the cellular RNA-activated protein kinase, PKR. In a recent article published in the journal Nature [1], findings on the rate of evolution of PKR and how it relates to K3L, a pseudosubstrate viral mimic from poxviruses, are presented. The authors employ an impressive diversity of ...

Careful examination of viral dynamics during antiretroviral treatment can provide important insights into HIV pathogenesis. We examined viral evolution during and after enfuvirtide (T-20) treatment with an objective of defining the characteristics of viral evolution during advanced HIV immunodeficiency. Specifically, we examined the viral quasispecies from nine patients who experienced incomple...

Antiretroviral therapy (ART) effectively controls HIV infection, suppressing HIV viral loads. However, some residual virus remains, below the level of detection, in HIV-infected patients on ART. The source of this viremia is an area of debate: does it derive primarily from activation of infected cells in the latent reservoir, or from ongoing viral replication? Observations seem to be contradict...

Phages, viral parasites of bacteria, share fundamental features of pathogenic animal and plant viruses and represent a highly tractable empirical model system to understand viral evolution and in particular viral host-adaptation. Phage adaptation to a particular host genotype often results in improved fitness by way of parallel evolution whereby independent lineages hit upon identical adaptive ...

Rates of evolution span orders of magnitude among RNA viruses with important implications for viral transmission and emergence. Although the tempo of viral evolution is often ascribed to viral features such as mutation rates and transmission mode, these factors alone cannot explain variation among closely related viruses, where host biology might operate more strongly on viral evolution. Here, ...