Recombination accelerates adaptation on a large-scale empirical fitness landscape in HIV-1

Moradigaravand, D., Kouyos, R., Hinkley, T., Haddad, M., Petropoulos, C. J., Engelstädter, J. and Bonhoeffer, S. (2014) Recombination accelerates adaptation on a large-scale empirical fitness landscape in HIV-1. PLoS Genetics, 10(6), e1004439. (doi: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1004439) (PMID:24967626) (PMCID:PMC4072600)

Abstract

Recombination has the potential to facilitate adaptation. In spite of the substantial body of theory on the impact of recombination on the evolutionary dynamics of adapting populations, empirical evidence to test these theories is still scarce. We examined the effect of recombination on adaptation on a large-scale empirical fitness landscape in HIV-1 based on in vitro fitness measurements. Our results indicate that recombination substantially increases the rate of adaptation under a wide range of parameter values for population size, mutation rate and recombination rate. The accelerating effect of recombination is stronger for intermediate mutation rates but increases in a monotonic way with the recombination rates and population sizes that we examined. We also found that both fitness effects of individual mutations and epistatic fitness interactions cause recombination to accelerate adaptation. The estimated epistasis in the adapting populations is significantly negative. Our results highlight the importance of recombination in the evolution of HIV-I.

• Item Type: Articles
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Hinkley, Dr Trevor
• Authors: Moradigaravand, D., Kouyos, R., Hinkley, T., Haddad, M., Petropoulos, C. J., Engelstädter, J., and Bonhoeffer, S.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Chemistry
• Journal Name: PLoS Genetics
• Publisher: Public Library of Science
• ISSN: 1553-7404
• ISSN (Online): 1553-7404
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2014 The Authors
• First Published: First published in PLoS Genetics 10(6):e1004439
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License