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KIN SELECTION IN VIRUSES

Altruism in a virus

Nature Microbiology volume 4, pages 910–911 (2019)Cite this article

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A recent study finds that viruses cooperate altruistically to overcome innate host immunity and that this can be explained in the same way we explain altruism between animals.

A behaviour or trait is altruistic when it is costly to perform and provides a benefit to others. Cost and benefit here are defined in terms of evolutionary fitness — the number of offspring produced. Explaining altruism is a fundamental problem for evolutionary biology. Given the Darwinian idea of ‘survival of the fittest’, how can we explain individuals carrying out a behaviour that reduces their own fitness, while increasing that of others?

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Fig. 1: Blocking interferon release indicates altruistic cooperation in a virus.

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  1. Department of Zoology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Asher Leeks & Stuart West

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  1. Asher Leeks
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  2. Stuart West
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Correspondence to Stuart West.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Leeks, A., West, S. Altruism in a virus. Nat Microbiol 4, 910–911 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-019-0463-0

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