Virus Evolution
New mass sequencing techniques are revealing that the diversity of viruses is much greater than ever imagined. In this article in Microbiology Today (pdf) Peter Simmonds shows that some recent “new” viruses are providing clues to how viruses evolve:
One of the immediate problems facing evolutionary studies of viruses is the evident fact that viruses are hugely diverse in size, appearance, even the nature of their genetic material (DNA or RNA). From this, it is reasonably clear that they are a not a single evolutionary group, and cannot be easily added as a single unit to the tree of life with its three main divisions (Bacteria, Archaea and Eukarya). By the same token, it seems likely that different virus groups (e.g. animal RNA viruses, retroviruses, large DNA viruses, bacteriophages) may indeed have entirely separate evolutionary origins. In this article I will describe two areas where recent discoveries have produced tantalizing new insights into the origin and ubiquity of some of these groups. Through the application of new, mass-sequencing techniques and scope for large-scale environmental sampling for virus genomic sequences, we may finally be able to understand the extent and complexity of the “virosphere” in which we live, and the extraordinary diversity of viruses that infect us.
Related:
- Evolutionary history and phylogeography of human viruses
- One virus particle can be enough to cause infection
- Coevolution with viruses drives bacterial mutations
Tags: Biology, evolution, Medicine, Microbiology, Science, Virology, virus
