News Release

Getting a step ahead of pathogens

Genetic architecture and the evolution of RNA viruses

Peer-Reviewed Publication

American Institute of Physics

College Park, MD (July 27, 2010) -- In biology and genetics, the concept of epistasis is what gives rise to the whole being more (or less) than the sum of its parts. The quantitative effect of a given mutation upon the traits of an organism has the potential to depend strongly upon the gene versions present in other parts of the genome, or even other mutations co-occurring in that gene. These genetic interactions, termed epistasis, can impact all aspects of organisms and play a pivotal role in the manifestation of sex, ploidy, modularity, robustness, reproductive isolation and the origin of species, the rate of adaptation, and the emergence of genetic mutations within individuals and populations. A recent article in the journal Chaos, published by the American Institute of Physics, examines the possibility of using epistasis to predict the outcome of the evolutionary processes, especially when the evolving units are pathogens such as viruses.

The article looks at three topics: empirical evidence from the RNA virus world, mathematical tools, and the application of these tools to particular problems. Santiago Elena and colleagues at Instituto de Biología Molecular y Celular de Plantas have surveyed past work in this field and concluded that even though RNA viruses have small genomes composed of few genes that encode a limited number of proteins, epistasis is abundant and conditions their evolution. The next steps may range from characterizing the statistical distributions of epistasis across hosts, which has tremendous relevance for the emergence of new viruses, to drawing the most likely evolutionary paths a virus may follow in response to treatments with antiviral drugs.

While this research is still in the early stages, Elena sees great potential.

"By increasing our ability to predict the most likely evolutionary paths a virus may follow in response to clinical treatments, we could get a step ahead of them and, perhaps, create new and more durable antiviral therapies," he says.

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The article, "Simple genomes, complex interactions: Epistasis in RNA virus" by Santiago F. Elena,2, Ricard V. Solé, and Josep Sardanyés was published online in the journal Chaos on June 30, 2010. See: http://link.aip.org/link/CHAOEH/v20/i2/p026106/s1

Journalists may request a free PDF of this article by contacting jbardi@aip.org

ABOUT CHAOS

Chaos is an interdisciplinary journal of non-linear science. The journal is published quarterly by the American Institute of Physics and is devoted to increasing the understanding of nonlinear phenomena and describing the manifestations in a manner comprehensible to researchers from a broad spectrum of disciplines. Special focus issues are published periodically each year and cover topics as diverse as the complex behavior of the human heart to chaotic fluid flow problems. See: http://chaos.aip.org/

ABOUT AIP

The American Institute of Physics is a federation of 10 physical science societies representing more than 135,000 scientists, engineers, and educators and is one of the world's largest publishers of scientific information in the physical sciences. Offering partnership solutions for scientific societies and for similar organizations in science and engineering, AIP is a leader in the field of electronic publishing of scholarly journals. AIP publishes 12 journals (some of which are the most highly cited in their respective fields), two magazines, including its flagship publication Physics Today; and the AIP Conference Proceedings series. Its online publishing platform Scitation hosts nearly two million articles from more than 185 scholarly journals and other publications of 28 learned society publishers.


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