Validation of high rates of nucleotide substitution in geminiviruses: phylogenetic evidence from East African cassava mosaic viruses.

ABSTRACT: Whitefly-transmitted geminiviruses are major pathogens of the important crop cassava in Africa. The intensive sampling and sequencing of cassava mosaic disease-causing viruses that occurred in the wake of a severe outbreak in Central Africa (1997-2002) allowed us to estimate the rate of evolution of this virus. East African cassava mosaic virus and related species are obligately bipartite (DNA-A and DNA-B segments), and these two genome segments have different evolutionary histories. Despite these phylogenetic differences, we inferred high rates of nucleotide substitution in both segments: mean rates of 1.60x10(-3) and 1.33x10(-4) substitutions site(-1) year(-1) for DNA-A and DNA-B, respectively. While similarly high substitution rates were found in datasets free of detectable recombinatio

SUBMITTER: Duffy S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4091138 | biostudies-literature | 2009 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature