Why are viral genomes so fragile? The bottleneck hypothesis.

If they undergo new mutations at each replication cycle, why are RNA viral genomes so fragile, with most mutations being either strongly deleterious or lethal? Here we provide theoretical and numerical evidence for the hypothesis that genetic fragility is partly an evolutionary response to the multi...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Nono S C Merleau, Sophie Pénisson, Philip J Gerrish, Santiago F Elena, Matteo Smerlak
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021-07-01
Series:PLoS Computational Biology
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pcbi.1009128