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Journal of Virology, April 2002, p. 3276-3281, Vol. 76, No. 7
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.76.7.3276-3281.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Distribution of Spontaneous Mutants and Inferences about the Replication Mode of the RNA Bacteriophage {phi}6

Lin Chao,1* Camilla U. Rang,2 and Linda E. Wong1

Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution, Division of Biology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-0116,1 Department of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093-06402

Received 10 May 2001/ Accepted 7 January 2002

When a parent virus replicates inside its host, it must first use its own genome as the template for replication. However, once progeny genomes are produced, the progeny can in turn act as templates. Depending on whether the progeny genomes become templates, the distribution of mutants produced by an infection varies greatly. While information on the distribution is important for many population genetic models, it is also useful for inferring the replication mode of a virus. We have analyzed the distribution of mutants emerging from single bursts in the RNA bacteriophage {phi}6 and find that the distribution closely matches a Poisson distribution. The match suggests that replication in this bacteriophage is effectively by a stamping machine model in which the parental genome is the main template used for replication. However, because the distribution deviates slightly from a Poisson distribution, the stamping machine is not perfect and some progeny genomes must replicate. By fitting our data to a replication model in which the progeny genomes become replicative at a given rate or probability per round of replication, we estimated the rate to be very low and on the on the order of 10-4. We discuss whether different replication modes may confer an adaptive advantage to viruses.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Section of Ecology, Behavior and Evolution, Division of Biology, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093-0116. Phone: (858) 822-2740. Fax: (858) 534-7108. E-mail: LChao{at}biomail.ucsd.edu.

Journal of Virology, April 2002, p. 3276-3281, Vol. 76, No. 7
0022-538X/02/$04.00+0     DOI: 10.1128/JVI.76.7.3276-3281.2002
Copyright © 2002, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



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