This week€™s addition to the virology toolbox was written by Danielle Coulson and Chris Upton Comparing genomes of viral strains can provide very useful insight into evolutionary relationships. Recombination, defined by Posada et al (2001) as the exchange of genetic information between two nucleotide sequences, is quite common in many viruses. Because recombination accounts for …
Bovine viral diarrhea virus is an economically important animal pathogen that may cause a fatal gastrointestinal disease in beef and dairy herds. Infection of a fetus with this virus during the first trimester leads to the birth of animals that are persistently infected for life. Some animals remain healthy, while others develop severe mucosal disease. …
Recombination between cellular and viral RNA produces a pathogenic virus Read More »
Viruses can be transmitted to completely new host species that they have not previously infected. Usually host defenses stop the infection before any replication and adaptation can take place. On rare occasions, a novel population of viruses arises in the new host. These interspecies infections can sometimes be deduced by sequence analyses, providing a glimpse …
Scientists and philosophers have long debated the trajectory of evolution. Some of the questions they consider include: is there a predictable direction for evolution, and if there is, what is the pathway? Are there evolutionary dead ends? Viruses are excellent subjects for the study of evolution: they have short generation times, high yields of offspring, …
