Understanding adherence to HIV medication.
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Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to J M Leider.
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The mutation rate of Rous sarcoma virus (RSV) was measured. Progeny descended from a single virion were collected after one replication cycle, and seven regions of the genome were analyzed for mutations by denaturing-gradient gel electrophoresis. In all, 65,250 nucleotides were screened, yielding nine mutations, and the RSV mutation rate was calculated as 1.4 x 10(-4) mutations per nucleotide per replication cycle. These results indicate that RSV is an extremely mutable virus. We speculate that the mutation rate of a virus may correlate inversely with the effectiveness of vaccination against a given virus and suggest that prevention of retrovirus-mediated disease via vaccination may prove difficult.
Epidemiologic and genetic evidence suggests that influenza A viruses evolve more rapidly than other viruses in humans. Although the high mutation rate of the virus is often cited as the cause of the extensive variation, direct measurement of this parameter has not been obtained in vivo. In this study, the rate of mutation in tissue culture for the nonstructural (NS) gene of influenza A virus and for the VP1 gene in poliovirus type 1 was assayed by direct sequence analysis. Each gene was repeatedly sequenced in over 100 viral clones which were descended from a single virion in one plaque generation. A total of 108 NS genes of influenza virus were sequenced, and in the 91,708 nucleotides analyzed, seven point changes were observed. A total of 105 VP1 genes of poliovirus were sequenced, and in the 95,688 nucleotides analyzed, no mutations were observed. We then calculated mutation rates of 1.5 X 10(-5) and less than 2.1 X 10(-6) mutations per nucleotide per infectious cycle for influenza virus and poliovirus, respectively. We suggest that the higher mutation rate of influenza A virus may promote the rapid evolution of this virus in nature.