Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • News & Views
  • Published:

Virus evolution

The importance of being erroneous

Viruses must mutate to survive in the face of attack by their host's immune system. A new model suggests that the viral mutation rate is optimized in an evolutionary trade-off between adaptability and genomic integrity.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: The evolution of viral genomic mutation rates.

References

  1. Drake, J. W., Charlesworth, B., Charlesworth, D. & Crow, J. F. Genetics 148, 1667–1686 (1998).

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  2. Kamp, C., Wilke, C. O., Adami, C. & Bornholdt, S. Complexity (in the press); Preprint cond-mat/0209613 (2002), http://arXiv.org

  3. Eigen, M. Naturwissenschaften 58, 465–523 (1971).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  4. Kimura, M. Genet. Res. 9, 23–34 (1967).

    Article  ADS  Google Scholar 

  5. Leigh, E. G. Genetics 73, 1–18 (1973).

    ADS  MathSciNet  Google Scholar 

  6. Ishii, K., Matsuda, H., Iwasa, Y. & Sasaki, A. Genetics 121, 163–174 (1989).

    CAS  PubMed  PubMed Central  Google Scholar 

  7. Nowak, M. A. Nature 347, 522 (1990).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Sniegowski, P. D., Gerrish, P. J., Johnson, T. & Shaver, A. BioEssays 22, 1057–1066 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Loeb, L. A. et al. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 96, 1492–1497 (1999).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Crotty, S., Cameron, C. E. & Andino, R. Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 98, 6895–6900 (2001).

    Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Bonhoeffer, S., Sniegowski, P. The importance of being erroneous. Nature 420, 367–369 (2002). https://doi.org/10.1038/420367a

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/420367a

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing