Unresolved advantages of multipartitism in spatially structured environments

TY - JOUR

T1 - Unresolved advantages of multipartitism in spatially structured environments

AU - Zwart, Mark P.

AU - Blanc, Stéphane

AU - Johnson, Marcelle

AU - Manrubia, Susanna

AU - Michalakis, Yannis

AU - Sofonea, Mircea T.

N1 - 7210, ME; Data archiving: no data (commentary)

PY - 2021

Y1 - 2021

N2 - Multipartite viruses have segmented genomes and package each of their genome segments individually into distinct virus particles. Multipartitism is common among plant viruses, but why this apparently costly genome organization and packaging has evolved remains unclear. Recently Zhang and colleagues developed network epidemiology models to study the epidemic spread of multipartite viruses and their distribution over plant and animal hosts (Phys. Rev. Lett. 2019, 123, 138101). In this short commentary, we call into question the relevance of these results because of key model assumptions. First, the model of plant hosts assumes virus transmission only occurs between adjacent plants. This assumption overlooks the basic but imperative fact that most multipartite viruses are transmitted over variable distances by mobile animal vectors, rendering the model results irrelevant to differences between plant and animal hosts. Second, when not all genome segments of a multipartite virus are transmitted to a host, the model assumes an incessant latent infection occurs. This is a bold assumption for which there is no evidence to date, making the relevance of these results to understanding multipartitism questionable.

AB - Multipartite viruses have segmented genomes and package each of their genome segments individually into distinct virus particles. Multipartitism is common among plant viruses, but why this apparently costly genome organization and packaging has evolved remains unclear. Recently Zhang and colleagues developed network epidemiology models to study the epidemic spread of multipartite viruses and their distribution over plant and animal hosts (Phys. Rev. Lett. 2019, 123, 138101). In this short commentary, we call into question the relevance of these results because of key model assumptions. First, the model of plant hosts assumes virus transmission only occurs between adjacent plants. This assumption overlooks the basic but imperative fact that most multipartite viruses are transmitted over variable distances by mobile animal vectors, rendering the model results irrelevant to differences between plant and animal hosts. Second, when not all genome segments of a multipartite virus are transmitted to a host, the model assumes an incessant latent infection occurs. This is a bold assumption for which there is no evidence to date, making the relevance of these results to understanding multipartitism questionable.

KW - international

KW - Plan_S-Compliant_OA

U2 - 10.1093/ve/veab004

DO - 10.1093/ve/veab004

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85105211056

SN - 2057-1577

VL - 7

JO - Virus Evolution

JF - Virus Evolution

IS - 1

M1 - veab004

ER -