The abstract is read at the publisher; the summary is JClub's.
Long-term persistent infection in Drosophila melanogaster drives viral evolution in a species-specific way, with DAV showing clonal interference, Nora late-stage sweeping, and DCV diversification at high titer.
- Why it matters: Persistent infections offer time for viral evolution, but how viral populations change across the host lifespan and infection stages is not well characterized.
- What they did: Viral quasispecies were tracked longitudinally across early, intermediate, and late infection stages for DAV, DCV, Nora virus, and Bloomfield virus, using population-level analyses to detect adaptive mutations and shifts in sequence composition.
- The result: DAV evolution followed clonal interference via turnover of competing haplotypes; Nora virus showed prolonged stasis with a late-stage sweep; DCV was purifying-selected in standard infections but diversified with high-titer infections; Bloomfield virus maintained higher fidelity and a stable genomic formula.
The findingWhy it mattersWhat they didThe result
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