What Does Virus Evolution Tell Us about Virus Origins?

被引:89
|
作者
Holmes, Edward C. [1 ,2 ]
机构
[1] Penn State Univ, Dept Biol, Ctr Infect Dis Dynam, Mueller Lab, University Pk, PA 16802 USA
[2] NIH, Fogarty Int Ctr, Bethesda, MD 20892 USA
关键词
1.2-MEGABASE GENOME SEQUENCE; CRYSTAL-STRUCTURE; RNA; DNA; LINEAGE; RATES; TRANSITION; TAXONOMY; REVEALS; DOMAINS;
D O I
10.1128/JVI.02203-10
中图分类号
Q93 [微生物学];
学科分类号
071005 ; 100705 ;
摘要
Despite recent advances in our understanding of diverse aspects of virus evolution, particularly on the epidemiological scale, revealing the ultimate origins of viruses has proven to be a more intractable problem. Herein, I review some current ideas on the evolutionary origins of viruses and assess how well these theories accord with what we know about the evolution of contemporary viruses. I note the growing evidence for the theory that viruses arose before the last universal cellular ancestor (LUCA). This ancient origin theory is supported by the presence of capsid architectures that are conserved among diverse RNA and DNA viruses and by the strongly inverse relationship between genome size and mutation rate across all replication systems, such that pre-LUCA genomes were probably both small and highly error prone and hence RNA virus-like. I also highlight the advances that are needed to come to a better understanding of virus origins, most notably the ability to accurately infer deep evolutionary history from the phylogenetic analysis of conserved protein structures.
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页码:5247 / 5251
页数:5
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