Related papers: Codon Bias and Mutability in HIV Sequences
Although several synonymous codons can encode the same aminoacid, this symmetry is generally broken in natural genetic systems. In this article, we show that the symmetry breaking can result from selective pressures due to the violation of…
Background: There is a 3-fold redundancy in the Genetic Code; most amino acids are encoded by more than one codon. These synonymous codons are not used equally; there is a Codon Usage Bias (CUB). This article will provide novel information…
Intrapatient HIV-1 evolution is dominated by selection on the protein level in the arms race with the adaptive immune system. When cytotoxic CD8+ T-cells or neutralizing antibodies target a new epitope, the virus often escapes via…
A new n-dimensional vector space of the DNA sequences on the Galois field of the 64 codons (GF(64)) is proposed. In this vector space gene mutations can be considered linear transformations or translations of the wild type gene. In…
The vertebrate adaptive immune system provides a flexible and diverse set of molecules to neutralize pathogens. Yet, viruses such as HIV can cause chronic infections by evolving as quickly as the adaptive immune system, forming an…
Selection pressures on proteins are usually measured by comparing homologous nucleotide sequences (Zuckerkandl and Pauling 1965). Recently we introduced a novel method, termed `volatility', to estimate selection pressures on protein…
$\textbf{Background:}$ High mutability of HIV is the driving force of antiretroviral drug resistance, which represents a medical care challenge. $\textbf{Method and Model Equation:}$ To detect the mutability of each gene in the HIV-1…
We argue that the phenomenon of symmetry breaking in genetics can enhance the adaptability of a species to changes in the environment. In the case of a virus, the claim is that the codon bias in the neutralization epitope improves the…
Drug resistance to HIV-1 Protease involves accumulation of multiple mutations in the protein. Here we investigate the role of these mutations by using molecular dynamics simulations which exploit the influence of the native-state topology…
We study the correlation between the codon usage bias of genetic sequences and the network features of protein-protein interaction (PPI) in bacterial species. We use PCA techniques in the space of codon bias indices to show that genes with…
Chronic infections of the human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) create a very complex co-evolutionary process, where the virus tries to escape the continuously adapting host immune system. Quantitative details of this process are largely…
Essential genes constitute the core of genes which cannot be mutated too much nor lost along the evolutionary history of a species. Natural selection is expected to be stricter on essential genes and on conserved (highly shared) genes, than…
The evolutionary dynamics of HIV during the chronic phase of infection is driven by the host immune response and by selective pressures exerted through drug treatment. To understand and model the evolution of HIV quantitatively, the…
The neutral mutation rate is known to vary widely along human chromosomes, leading to mutational hot and cold regions. We provide evidence that categories of functionally-related genes reside preferentially in mutationally hot or cold…
During chronic infection, HIV-1 engages in a rapid coevolutionary arms race with the host's adaptive immune system. While it is clear that HIV exerts strong selection on the adaptive immune system, the characteristics of the somatic…
We present a statistical model of bacterial evolution based on the coupling between codon usage and tRNA abundance. Such a model interprets this aspect of the evolutionary process as a balance between the codon homogenization effect due to…
A possible explanation based on first principles for the appearance of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is proposed involving coinfection with HIV. The gist is that the resultant HIV-induced immunocompromise allows SARS-CoV-2…
While confirming the long held view that viruses do not closely imitate the use of their host's codon catalogue, Esposito and coworkers nevertheless consider it surprising that, despite having the ability to infect the same host, many…
RNA editing can be crucial for the expression of genetic information via inserting, deleting, or substituting a few nucleotides at specific positions in an RNA sequence. Within coding regions in an RNA sequence, editing usually occurs with…
A representation of the genetic code as a six-dimensional Boolean hypercube is proposed. It is assumed here that this structure is the result of the hierarchical order of the interaction energies of the bases in codon-anticodon recognition.…