dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaReplication at periodically changing multiplicity of infection promotes stable coexistence of competing viral populations
| Authors | Claus O. Wilke, Daniel D. Reissig, Isabel S. Novella |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0402010 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0402010 |
| Journal | Evolution 58:900-905, 2004 |
Abstract
RNA viruses are a widely used tool to study evolution experimentally. Many standard protocols of virus propagation and competition are done at nominally low multiplicity of infection (m.o.i.), but lead during one passage to two or more rounds of infection, of which the later ones are at high m.o.i. Here, we develop a model of the competition between wild type (wt) and a mutant under a regime of alternating m.o.i. We assume that the mutant is deleterious when it infects cells on its own, but derives a selective advantage when rare and coinfecting with wt, because it can profit from superior protein products created by the wt. We find that, under these assumptions, replication at alternating low and high m.o.i. may lead to the stable coexistence of wt and mutant for a wide range of parameter settings. The predictions of our model are consistent with earlier observations of frequency-dependent selection in VSV and HIV-1. Our results suggest that frequency-dependent selection may be common in typical evolution experiments with viruses.
{
"annotation_id": "1dbc02bf-de02-42ee-be0b-d620ba8ee390",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:01:30.959000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:01:30.959000Z",
"file_hash": "2a6e78f35ad53530960947b808bdbda5e13fcf504ec6edd75448abe64d34a696",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "RNA viruses are a widely used tool to study evolution experimentally. Many\nstandard protocols of virus propagation and competition are done at nominally\nlow multiplicity of infection (m.o.i.), but lead during one passage to two or\nmore rounds of infection, of which the later ones are at high m.o.i. Here, we\ndevelop a model of the competition between wild type (wt) and a mutant under a\nregime of alternating m.o.i. We assume that the mutant is deleterious when it\ninfects cells on its own, but derives a selective advantage when rare and\ncoinfecting with wt, because it can profit from superior protein products\ncreated by the wt. We find that, under these assumptions, replication at\nalternating low and high m.o.i. may lead to the stable coexistence of wt and\nmutant for a wide range of parameter settings. The predictions of our model are\nconsistent with earlier observations of frequency-dependent selection in VSV\nand HIV-1. Our results suggest that frequency-dependent selection may be common\nin typical evolution experiments with viruses.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0402010",
"authors": [
"Claus O. Wilke",
"Daniel D. Reissig",
"Isabel S. Novella"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.PE"
],
"journal_ref": "Evolution 58:900-905, 2004",
"title": "Replication at periodically changing multiplicity of infection promotes stable coexistence of competing viral populations",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0402010"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "94ac9194-6e62-476e-8643-209257c4acbf",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}