The pressure pan evolution of human erythrovirus B19 in the Amazon, Brazil

To understand the evolutionary dynamics of human parvovirus B 19, we analyzed VP1 and VP2 gene sequences of B 19 sampled from Belem (Amazon), the city of Sao Paulo, Brazil and globally. Our analysis revealed a strikingly different pattern of evolutionary change for those viral lineages introduced into Belem, which exhibited a higher rate of nonsynonymous substitutions compared to those viruses sampled from other locations. We propose that difference this is due to the high prevalence of B 19 in Belem (up to 85%) compared to other locations (prevalences of approximately 50%), which imposes a more intense selection pressure. Hence, those B19 lineages introduced into Belem experienced an elevated rate of amino acid change, driven by positive selection, in order to generate serial re-infections in a small web of transmission, which can be thought of as an evolutionary pressure pan. (c) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.