title: Host-related nucleotide composition and codon usage as driving forces in the recent evolution of the Astroviridae.
abstract: The evolutionary history of the Astroviridae comprises the ancient separation between avian and mammalian astrovirus lineages followed by diversification among mammalian astroviruses. The latter process included several cross-species transmissions. We found that the recent, but not the ancient, evolution of astroviruses was associated with a switch in nucleotide composition and codon usage among non-human mammalian versus human/avian astroviruses. Virus and hosts phylogenies based on codon usage agreed with each other and matched the hosts' evolutionary emergence order. This recent switch in driving forces acting at the synonymous level points to the adaptation of codon usage by viruses to that of their hosts after cross-species transmissions. This is the first demonstration of nucleotide composition and codon usage being active driving forces during the recent evolutionary history of a virus group in the host-parasite system.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory of Experimental Virology, Department of Medical Microbiology, Center for Infection and Immunity Amsterdam, Academic Medical Center, University of Amsterdam, Meibergdreef 15, 1105 AZ Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Formijn J
authors.initials: FJ
authors.lastname: van Hemert
authors.forename: Ben
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Berkhout
authors.forename: Vladimir V
authors.initials: VV
authors.lastname: Lukashov
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D019200:Astroviridae / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics*; D001482:Base Composition; D001717:Birds / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology; D003062:Codon; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D006801:Humans; D008322:Mammals / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology; D009711:Nucleotides; D016366:Open Reading Frames / Q000235:genetics; D010802:Phylogeny; D017421:Sequence Analysis; D013045:Species Specificity
chemical_list: D003062:Codon; D009711:Nucleotides