ViroBlogy

See on Scoop.it – Virology and Bioinformatics from Virology.ca

“Genetic, phylogenetic, and biochemical data presented here support an evolutionary scenario for the natural history of alphaviruses, in which the acquisition of DLP structure in their mRNAs probably allowed the colonization of vertebrate host and the consequent geographic expansion of some of these viruses worldwide.”

I have taught for some time now that the evolution of many mammalian viruses must have involved adaptation of originally (and sometimes still) insect-infecting agents – given that insects crawled out onto dry land quite a long time before vertebrates did.  This is a nice illustration of that.  Pity I don’t teach anymore B-(

See on jvi.asm.org

Tags: alphavirus, Evolution, host adaptation

This entry was posted on 10 August, 2012 at 09:35 and is filed under Evolution, Viruses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.