title: Homologous recombination in negative sense RNA viruses.
abstract: Recombination is an important process that influences biological evolution at many different levels. More and more homologous recombination events have been reported among negative sense RNA viruses recently. While sporadic authentic examples indicate that homologous recombination does occur, recombination seems to be generally rare or even absent in most negative sense RNA viruses, and most of the homologous recombination events reported in the literature were likely generated artificially due to lab contamination or inappropriate bioinformatics methods. Homologous recombination in negative sense RNA viruses should be reported with caution in the future, and only after stringent quality control efforts. Moreover, co-infection experiments should be performed to confirm whether recombination can occur.
authors: Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ 85721, USA. guanzhu@email.arizona.edu
authors: Guan-Zhu
authors: GZ
authors: Han
authors: Michael
authors: M
authors: Worobey
mesh_terms: D060085:Coinfection; D019295:Computational Biology / Q000592:standards; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005814:Genes, Viral; D059765:Homologous Recombination; D010802:Phylogeny; D012328:RNA Viruses / Q000235:genetics*; D012367:RNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics*; D014776:Virus Cultivation / Q000592:standards
chemical_list: D012367:RNA, Viral