Reproductive strategies such as sexual reproduction and recombination that involve the shuffling of parental genomes for the production of offspring are ubiquitous in nature. However, their evolutionary benefit remains unclear. Many theories have identified potential benefits, but progress is hampered by the scarcity of relevant data. One class of theories is based on the assumption that mutations affecting fitness exhibit negative epistasis. Retroviruses recombine frequently and thus provide a unique opportunity to test these theories. Using amino acid sequence data and fitness values from 9466 human immunodeficiency virus 1 (HIV-1) isolates, we find in contrast to these theories strong statistical evidence for a predominance of positive epistasis in HIV-1.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1101786 | DOI Listing |
J Appl Genet
January 2025
Department of Plant Protection, Division of Plant Pathology and Mycology, Wrocław University of Environmental and Life Sciences, Grunwaldzki 24A, 50-363, Wrocław, Poland.
Fusarium stalk rot is the main factor reducing the quality of maize grain and leads to significant yield losses, which that ranges from 20 to 100%, depending on the degree of infection and weather conditions. Understanding its genetic mechanism is key to improving grain quality and ultimate yield. An experiment with 26 doubled haploid (DH) lines of maize was conducted in the northern part of the Lower Silesia Province in Poland over a ten-year period (2013-2022).
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSince the introduction of H3N2 influenza A viruses in the human population, these viruses have continuously evolved to escape human immunity, with mutations occurring in and around the receptor binding site. This process, called antigenic drift, recently resulted in viruses that recognize elongated glycans that are not abundantly displayed in the human respiratory tract. Such receptor specificities hampered our ability to pick and propagate vaccine strains.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenomics
November 2024
Nevada Institute of Personalized Medicine, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA; School of Life Sciences, University of Nevada Las Vegas, 4505 S. Maryland Parkway, Las Vegas, NV 89154, USA; Heligenics Inc., 10530 Discovery Drive, Las Vegas, NV 89135, USA. Electronic address:
Many pathological conditions are a result of intragenic epistasis; however, there are ambiguities in current epistasis models. Herein, the new Mutation Interaction Spectrum model defines a discrete outcome, named a Mutation Interaction, for each double point mutation in a gene and its component single mutations. The model is a universal genetic model of all types of mutation interactions and their functional outcomes and is derived from digital logic, commonly used in electrical engineering.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFImmunogenetics
November 2024
Rush Alzheimer's Disease Center, Rush University Medical Center, Chicago, IL, USA.
Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) of Alzheimer's disease (AD) have identified a large number of susceptibility genes, but most of AD heritability remains unexplained, implying the existence of additional genes. Furthermore, the majority of the GWAS have been conducted in people of European descent, and the genes important for AD susceptibility in people of African descent have been underexplored. In this hypothesis-generating prospective cohort study, we genotyped 191 African Americans (AAs) from three longitudinal cohorts on aging for the IgG3 allotype GM6, which is expressed exclusively in people of African descent, and assessed its interaction with IGHG, FCGRIIB, and HLA-DRB1 genes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFbioRxiv
October 2024
Division of Basic Sciences, Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center, Seattle, Washington, USA.
Polymicrobial communities are often recalcitrant to antibiotic treatment because interactions between different microbes can dramatically alter their responses and susceptibility to antimicrobials. However, the mechanisms of evolving antimicrobial resistance in such polymicrobial environments are poorly understood. We previously reported that Mg depletion caused by the fungus can enable to acquire significant resistance to colistin, a last-resort antibiotic targeting bacterial membrane.
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