dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaHost-Parasite Co-evolution and Optimal Mutation Rates for Semi-conservative Quasispecies
| Authors | Yisroel Brumer, Eugene I. Shakhnovich |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0401026 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0401026 |
| DOI | 10.1103/PhysRevE.69.061909 |
Abstract
In this paper, we extend a model of host-parasite co-evolution to incorporate the semi-conservative nature of DNA replication for both the host and the parasite. We find that the optimal mutation rate for the semi-conservative and conservative hosts converge for realistic genome lengths, thus maintaining the admirable agreement between theory and experiment found previously for the conservative model and justifying the conservative approximation in some cases. We demonstrate that, while the optimal mutation rate for a conservative and semi-conservative parasite interacting with a given immune system is similar to that of a conservative parasite, the properties away from this optimum differ significantly. We suspect that this difference, coupled with the requirement that a parasite optimize survival in a range of viable hosts, may help explain why semi-conservative viruses are known to have significantly lower mutation rates than their conservative counterparts.
{
"annotation_id": "e47c8e9f-071b-4399-9ee1-990816905cc0",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:01:31.613000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:01:31.613000Z",
"file_hash": "d4d3a836a1fb33ba7a364ab1c3707e27c228c1d2ee59291ef453080123f96913",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "In this paper, we extend a model of host-parasite co-evolution to incorporate\nthe semi-conservative nature of DNA replication for both the host and the\nparasite. We find that the optimal mutation rate for the semi-conservative and\nconservative hosts converge for realistic genome lengths, thus maintaining the\nadmirable agreement between theory and experiment found previously for the\nconservative model and justifying the conservative approximation in some cases.\nWe demonstrate that, while the optimal mutation rate for a conservative and\nsemi-conservative parasite interacting with a given immune system is similar to\nthat of a conservative parasite, the properties away from this optimum differ\nsignificantly. We suspect that this difference, coupled with the requirement\nthat a parasite optimize survival in a range of viable hosts, may help explain\nwhy semi-conservative viruses are known to have significantly lower mutation\nrates than their conservative counterparts.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0401026",
"authors": [
"Yisroel Brumer",
"Eugene I. Shakhnovich"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.PE",
"cond-mat.soft"
],
"doi": "10.1103/PhysRevE.69.061909",
"title": "Host-Parasite Co-evolution and Optimal Mutation Rates for Semi-conservative Quasispecies",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0401026"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "db4490ab-6416-4bb4-833a-4f33423b0a37",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}