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A Selective Advantage for Conservative Viruses

Yisroel Brumer·Eugene I. Shakhnovich
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Abstract

In this letter we study the full semi-conservative treatment of a model for the co-evolution of a virus and an adaptive immune system. Regions of viability are calculated for both conservatively and semi-conservatively replicating viruses interacting with a realistic semi-conservatively replicating immune system. The conservative virus is found to have a selective advantage in the form of an ability to survive in regions with a wider range of mutation rates than its semi-conservative counterpart. This may help explain the existence of a rich range of viruses with conservatively replicating genomes, a trait which is found nowhere else in nature.

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Yisroel Brumer, Eugene I. Shakhnovich. 2004-01-16. A Selective Advantage for Conservative Viruses. https://doi.org/10.1103/physreve.71.031903

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