title: Positive selection of synonymous mutations in vesicular stomatitis virus.
abstract: Prevailing evolutionary forces are typically deduced from the pattern of differences in synonymous and non-synonymous mutations, under the assumption of neutrality in the absence of amino acid change. We determined the complete sequence of ten vesicular stomatitis virus populations evolving under positive selection. A significant number of the mutations occurred independently in two or more strains, a process known as parallel evolution, and a substantial fraction of the parallel mutations were silent. Parallel evolution was also identified in non-coding regions. These results indicate that silent mutations can significantly contribute to adaptation in RNA viruses, and relative frequencies of synonymous and non-synonymous substitutions may not be useful to resolve their evolutionary history.
authors.affiliation: Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Medical College of Ohio, Toledo, OH 43614 USA. isabel@mco.edu
authors.forename: I S
authors.initials: IS
authors.lastname: Novella
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Zárate
authors.forename: D
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Metzgar
authors.forename: B E
authors.initials: BE
authors.lastname: Ebendick-Corpus
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005075:Biological Evolution; D006224:Cricetinae; D004847:Epithelial Cells / Q000502:physiology / Q000821:virology; D005347:Fibroblasts / Q000502:physiology / Q000821:virology; D007668:Kidney / Q000502:physiology / Q000821:virology; D009154:Mutation / Q000235:genetics*; D011576:Psychodidae / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000821:virology*; D012641:Selection, Genetic; D014721:Vesicular stomatitis Indiana virus / Q000235:genetics* / Q000472:pathogenicity