Recurrent evolution of high virulence in isolated populations of a DNA virus

Abstract
Data availability
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Abstract

Hosts and viruses are constantly evolving in response to each other: as a host attempts to suppress a virus, the virus attempts to evade and suppress the host's immune system. Here we describe the recurrent evolution of a virulent strain of a DNA virus which infects multiple Drosophila species. Specifically, we identified two distinct viral types that differ 100-fold in viral titer in infected individuals, with similar differences observed in multiple species. Our analysis suggests that one of the viral types appears to have recurrently evolved at least 4 times in the past ~30,000 years, 3X in Arizona and once in another geographically distinct species. This recurrent evolution may be facilitated by an effective mutation rate which increases as each prior mutation increases viral titer and effective population size. The higher titer viral type suppresses the host immune system and an increased virulence compared to the low viral titer type.

Data availability

Sequencing data have been deposited on the NCBI SRA under the study accession: SRP187240Genomes used in this study are available at the following accessions:Drosophila innubila - GCF_004354385.1Drosophila innubila Nudivirus - GCF_004132165.1Drosophila azteca - GCA_005876895.1

The following data sets were generated

1. Hill T
2. Unckless RL
(2020) Drosophila Sky Island sequencing
NCBI, SRP187240.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sra/SRX5449484[accn]
1. Hill T
2. Unckless RL
(2020) Drosophila Sky Island data analysis
Dryad Digital Repository, doi:10.5061/dryad.2fqz612mh.

http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.2fqz612mh

Article and author information

Author details

Tom Hill

Molecular Biosciences, University of Kansas, Lawrence, United States

For correspondence
tom.hill@ku.edu

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-4661-6391
Robert L Unckless

Department of Molecular Biosciences, University of Kansas, Lawrence, United States

Competing interests
The authors declare that no competing interests exist.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8586-7137

Funding

KU CMADP (P20 GM103638)

Tom Hill
Robert L Unckless

K-INBRE (P20 GM103418)

Tom Hill

National Institutes of Health (R00 GM114714)

Robert L Unckless

National Institutes of Health (R01 AI139154)

Robert L Unckless

National Science Foundation (DEB-1737824)

Tom Hill
Robert L Unckless

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.