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Journal of Virology, April 2000, p. 3566-3571, Vol. 74, No. 8
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.

Diminishing Returns of Population Size in the Rate of RNA Virus Adaptation

Rosario Miralles, Andrés Moya, and Santiago F. Elena*

Institut Cavanilles de Biodiversitat i Biología Evolutiva and Departament de Genètica, Universitat de València, 46071 València, Spain

Received 17 September 1999/Accepted 14 January 2000

Whenever an asexual viral population evolves by adapting to new environmental conditions, beneficial mutations, the ultimate cause of adaptation, are randomly produced and then fixed in the population. The larger the population size and the higher the mutation rate, the more beneficial mutations can be produced per unit time. With the usually high mutation rate of RNA viruses and in a large enough population, several beneficial mutations could arise at the same time but in different genetic backgrounds, and if the virus is asexual, they will never be brought together through recombination. Thus, the best of these genotypes must outcompete each other on their way to fixation. This competition among beneficial mutations has the effect of slowing the overall rate of adaptation. This phenomenon is known as clonal interference. Clonal interference predicts a speed limit for adaptation as the population size increases. In the present report, by varying the size of evolving vesicular stomatitis virus populations, we found evidence clearly demonstrating this speed limit and thus indicating that clonal interference might be an important factor modulating the rate of adaptation to an in vitro cell system. Several evolutionary and epidemiological implications of the clonal interference model applied to RNA viruses are discussed.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Institut Cavanilles de Biodiversitat i Biología Evolutiva, Edifici d'Instituts de Paterna, Universitat de València, Apartado 2085, 46071 València, Spain. Phone: (34) 963 983 666. Fax: (34) 963 983 670. E-mail: santiago.elena{at}uv.es.

Journal of Virology, April 2000, p. 3566-3571, Vol. 74, No. 8
0022-538X/00/$04.00+0
Copyright © 2000, American Society for Microbiology. All rights reserved.


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