title: Statistical properties and error threshold of quasispecies on single-peak Gaussian-distributed fitness landscapes.
abstract: The stochastic Eigen model proposed by Feng et al. (2007) (Journal of Theoretical Biology, 246, 28) showed that error threshold is no longer a phase transition point but a crossover region whose width depends on the strength of the random fluctuation in an environment. The underlying cause of this phenomenon has not yet been well examined. In this article, we adopt a single peak Gaussian distributed fitness landscape instead of a constant one to investigate and analyze the change of the error threshold and the statistical property of the quasi-species population. We find a roughly linear relation between the width of the error threshold and the fitness fluctuation strength. For a given quasi-species, the fluctuation of the relative concentration has a minimum with a normal distribution of the relative concentration at the maximum of the averaged relative concentration, it has however a largest value with a bimodal distribution of the relative concentration near the error threshold. The above results deepen our understanding of the quasispecies and error threshold and are heuristic for exploring practicable antiviral strategies.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biophysics, School of Sciences, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China.
authors.forename: Duo-Fang
authors.initials: DF
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biophysics, School of Sciences, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China.
authors.forename: Tian-Guang
authors.initials: TG
authors.lastname: Cao
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biophysics, School of Sciences, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China.
authors.forename: Jin-Peng
authors.initials: JP
authors.lastname: Geng
authors.affiliation: China Institute of Atomic Energy, P. O. Box 275 (10), Beijing 102413, China.
authors.forename: Jian-Zhong
authors.initials: JZ
authors.lastname: Gu
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biophysics, School of Sciences, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China.
authors.forename: Hai-Long
authors.initials: HL
authors.lastname: An
authors.affiliation: Institute of Biophysics, School of Sciences, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin 300401, China. Electronic address: yongz2013@163.com.
authors.forename: Yong
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zhan
mesh_terms: D015233:Models, Statistical
keywords: Error threshold; Gaussian distribution; Quasispecies; Randomization; Single peak fitness