6533b82dfe1ef96bd1291628
RESEARCH PRODUCT
The Social Life of Viruses
Rafael Sanjuánsubject
genetic structuresGenotypeSpatial structurevirusesPopulationVirus-virus interactionsSuperinfection exclusionBiologyVirus ReplicationVirus03 medical and health sciencesVirologymedicineDefective interfering particleseducationViral evolution030304 developmental biology0303 health scienceseducation.field_of_studySocial evolution030306 microbiologyTransmission (medicine)Host (biology)Virionmedicine.diseaseCooperationEvolutionary biologyViral evolutionVirusesCoinfectionSocial evolutiondescription
Despite their simplicity, viruses exhibit certain types of social interactions. Situations in which a given virus achieves higher fitness in combination with other members of the viral population have been described at the level of transmission, replication, suppression of host immune responses, and host killing, enabling the evolution of viral cooperation. Although cellular coinfection with multiple viral particles is the typical playground for these interactions, cooperation between viruses infecting different cells is also established through cellular and viral-encoded communication systems. In general, the stability of cooperation is compromised by cheater genotypes, as best exemplified by defective interfering particles. As predicted by social evolution theory, cheater invasion can be avoided when cooperators interact preferentially with other cooperators, a situation that is promoted in spatially structured populations. Processes such as transmission bottlenecks, organ compartmentalization, localized spread of infection foci, superinfection exclusion, and even discrete intracellular replication centers promote multilevel spatial structuring in viruses.
| year | journal | country | edition | language |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021-01-01 | Annual Review of Virology |