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Evolutionary dynamics of giant viruses and their virophages

Giant viruses contain large genomes, encode many proteins atypical for viruses, replicate in large viral factories, and tend to infect protists. The giant virus replication factories can in turn be infected by so called virophages, which are smaller viruses that negatively impact giant virus replica...

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Autor principal: Wodarz, Dominik
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2013
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3728950/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23919155
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.600
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author Wodarz, Dominik
author_facet Wodarz, Dominik
author_sort Wodarz, Dominik
collection PubMed
description Giant viruses contain large genomes, encode many proteins atypical for viruses, replicate in large viral factories, and tend to infect protists. The giant virus replication factories can in turn be infected by so called virophages, which are smaller viruses that negatively impact giant virus replication. An example is Mimiviruses that infect the protist Acanthamoeba and that are themselves infected by the virophage Sputnik. This study examines the evolutionary dynamics of this system, using mathematical models. While the models suggest that the virophage population will evolve to increasing degrees of giant virus inhibition, it further suggests that this renders the virophage population prone to extinction due to dynamic instabilities over wide parameter ranges. Implications and conditions required to avoid extinction are discussed. Another interesting result is that virophage presence can fundamentally alter the evolutionary course of the giant virus. While the giant virus is predicted to evolve toward increasing its basic reproductive ratio in the absence of the virophage, the opposite is true in its presence. Therefore, virophages can not only benefit the host population directly by inhibiting the giant viruses but also indirectly by causing giant viruses to evolve toward weaker phenotypes. Experimental tests for this model are suggested.
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spelling pubmed-37289502013-08-05 Evolutionary dynamics of giant viruses and their virophages Wodarz, Dominik Ecol Evol Original Research Giant viruses contain large genomes, encode many proteins atypical for viruses, replicate in large viral factories, and tend to infect protists. The giant virus replication factories can in turn be infected by so called virophages, which are smaller viruses that negatively impact giant virus replication. An example is Mimiviruses that infect the protist Acanthamoeba and that are themselves infected by the virophage Sputnik. This study examines the evolutionary dynamics of this system, using mathematical models. While the models suggest that the virophage population will evolve to increasing degrees of giant virus inhibition, it further suggests that this renders the virophage population prone to extinction due to dynamic instabilities over wide parameter ranges. Implications and conditions required to avoid extinction are discussed. Another interesting result is that virophage presence can fundamentally alter the evolutionary course of the giant virus. While the giant virus is predicted to evolve toward increasing its basic reproductive ratio in the absence of the virophage, the opposite is true in its presence. Therefore, virophages can not only benefit the host population directly by inhibiting the giant viruses but also indirectly by causing giant viruses to evolve toward weaker phenotypes. Experimental tests for this model are suggested. Blackwell Publishing Ltd 2013-07 2013-06-04 /pmc/articles/PMC3728950/ /pubmed/23919155 http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.600 Text en © 2013 The Authors. Ecology and Evolution published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/ Re-use of this article is permitted in accordance with the Creative Commons Deed, Attribution 2.5, which does not permit commercial exploitation.
spellingShingle Original Research
Wodarz, Dominik
Evolutionary dynamics of giant viruses and their virophages
title Evolutionary dynamics of giant viruses and their virophages
title_full Evolutionary dynamics of giant viruses and their virophages
title_fullStr Evolutionary dynamics of giant viruses and their virophages
title_full_unstemmed Evolutionary dynamics of giant viruses and their virophages
title_short Evolutionary dynamics of giant viruses and their virophages
title_sort evolutionary dynamics of giant viruses and their virophages
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3728950/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23919155
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/ece3.600
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