Generated randomly and selected functionally? The nature of enterovirus recombination
Abstract
Genetic recombination in RNA viruses is an important evolutionary mechanism. It con-tributes to population diversity, host/tissue adaptation and compromises vaccine efficacy. Both the molecular mechanism and initial products of recombination are relatively poorly understood. We used an established poliovirus-based in vitro recombination assay to investigate the roles of se-quence identity and RNA structure, both implicated or inferred from analysis of circulating recom-binant viruses, in the process. In addition, we used next generation sequencing to investigate the early products of recombination after cellular co-infection with different poliovirus serotypes. In independent studies we find no evidence for a role for RNA identity or structure in determining recombination junctions location. Instead, genome function and fitness are of greater importance in determining the identity of recombinant progeny. These studies provide further insights into this important evolutionary mechanism and emphasise the critical nature of the selection process on a mixed virus population.
Citation
Alnaji , F G , Bentley , K , Pearson , A , Woodman , A , Moore , J , Fox , H , MacAdam , A & Evans , D J 2022 , ' Generated randomly and selected functionally? The nature of enterovirus recombination ' , Viruses , vol. 14 , no. 5 , 916 . https://doi.org/10.3390/v14050916
Publication
Viruses
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
1999-4915Type
Journal article
Rights
Copyright: © 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
Description
FA was supported by a PhD studentship from the Ministry of Education, Government of Saudi Arabia and KB was supported by Biological Sciences Research Council award BB/M009343/1to D.J.E and an ISSF award from The Wellcome Trust to the BSRC, University of St Andrews.Collections
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