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Science 13 January 2006:
Vol. 311. no. 5758, pp. 236 - 238
DOI: 10.1126/science.1115030
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Reports

Long-Term Transmission of Defective RNA Viruses in Humans and Aedes Mosquitoes

John Aaskov,1 Katie Buzacott,1 Hlaing Myat Thu,1,2 Kym Lowry,1,3 Edward C. Holmes4*

In 2001, dengue virus type 1 (DENV-1) populations in humans and mosquitoes from Myanmar acquired a stop-codon mutation in the surface envelope (E) protein gene. Within a year, this stop-codon strain had spread to all individuals sampled. The presence of truncated E protein species within individual viral populations, along with a general relaxation in selective constraint, indicated that the stop-codon strain represents a defective lineage of DENV-1. We propose that such long-term transmission of defective RNA viruses in nature was achieved through complementation by coinfection of host cells with functional viruses.

1 School of Life Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane, 4001, Australia.
2 Department of Medical Research, Ziwaka Road, Yangon 11191, Myanmar.
3 Australian Army Malaria Institute, Enoggera, Brisbane, 4051, Australia.
4 Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Department of Biology, The Pennsylvania State University, Mueller Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ech15{at}psu.edu

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THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)