Viruses roll the dice: the stochastic behavior of viral genome molecules accelerates viral adaptation at the cell and tissue levels
Abstract
Recent studies on evolutionarily distant viral groups have shown that the number of viral genomes that establish cell infection after cell-to-cell transmission is unexpectedly small (1-20 genomes). This aspect of viral infection appears to be important for the adaptation and survival of viruses. To clarify how the number of viral genomes that establish cell infection is determined, we developed a simulation model of cell infection for tomato mosaic virus (ToMV), a positive-strand RNA virus. The model showed that stochastic processes that govern the replication or degradation of individual genomes result in the infection by a small number of genomes, while a large number of infectious genomes are introduced in the cell. It also predicted two interesting characteristics regarding cell infection patterns: stochastic variation among cells in the number of viral genomes that establish infection and stochastic inequality in the accumulation of their progenies in each cell. Both characteristics were validated experimentally by inoculating tobacco cells with a library of nucleotide sequence-tagged ToMV and analyzing the viral genomes that accumulated in each cell using a high-throughput sequencer. An additional simulation model reveale...Continue Reading
References
Tomato mosaic virus replication protein suppresses virus-targeted posttranscriptional gene silencing
Three-dimensional analysis of a viral RNA replication complex reveals a virus-induced mini-organelle
Citations
Datasets Mentioned
Methods Mentioned
Software Mentioned
Related Concepts
Related Feeds
Actin, Myosin & Cell Movement
Contractile forces generated by the actin-myosin cytoskeleton are critical for morphogenesis, but the cellular and molecular mechanisms of contraction have been elusive for many cell shape changes and movements. Here is the latest research on the roles of actin and myosin in cell movement.