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Science 26 November 2004:
Vol. 306. no. 5701, p. 1433
DOI: 10.1126/science.306.5701.1433f
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This Week in Science
What is the evolutionary benefit of recombination and sexual reproduction? One class of theories suggests that recombination has been favored by selection because of its influence on epistatic interactions, whereby a gene at one locus influences the expression of a gene at another. Retroviruses such as human immunodeficiency virus-type 1 (HIV-1) offer the opportunity to test such theories because they exhibit rates of recombination sufficiently large to provide, statistically significant sample sizes. Bonhoeffer et al. (p. 1547; see the Perspective by Michalakis and Roze) analyzed a data set of nearly 10,000 HIV-1 sequences with precise fitness estimates, based on an assay that measures the total production of progeny virus after a single full round of replication. They find evidence for positive epistasis, which calls into question theories that are based on negative epistasis. In addition, it appears that recombination slows down, rather than accelerates, the evolution of drug resistance in HIV-1.
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)
