Journal
VIRUSES-BASEL
Volume 1, Issue 2, Pages 241-254Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/v1020241
Keywords
epistasis; evolutionary constraints; genome complexity; mutation rate; RNA folding; viroid evolution
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Funding
- Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovacion [BFU2006-14819-C02-01/BMC, BIO2008-01986]
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We suggest that viroids are trapped into adaptive peaks as the result of adaptive constraints. The first one is imposed by the necessity to fold into packed structures to escape from RNA silencing. This creates antagonistic epistases, which make future adaptive trajectories contingent upon the first mutation and slow down the rate of adaptation. This second constraint can only be surpassed by increasing genetic redundancy or by recombination. Eigen's paradox imposes a limit to the increase in genome complexity in the absence of mechanisms reducing mutation rate. Therefore, recombination appears as the only possible route to evolutionary innovation in viroids.
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