Viruses are lean, mean, infection machines. Their genomes are tiny, usually limited to a handful of absolutely essential genes, and they shed extra genomic deadweight extremely fast.
University of Utah HealthNov 20 2024 Coronavirus es, including SARS -CoV-2 , appear at first glance to be an exception. They have some extra "accessory" genes in addition to the usual minimal viral set, and scientists don't know what most of them do. Scientists believe these extra genes must be doing something important, though, or they would be rapidly lost as the viruses evolved.
Viruses usually don't keep genes that aren't valuable to the virus in some way. So what are the evolutionary pressures that determine whether a viral gene sticks around or is kicked out?" To help understand these extra viral genes, Goldstein watched accessory gene evolution occur in real time in a mouse coronavirus. He was surprised to see that one of the genes was retained in the genome over many generations of viruses, even though it no longer produced a protein.
Related StoriesThe researchers suspect that these seemingly broken genes may help control the activity of other viral genes in important ways. When the mouse virus lost a different accessory gene, the activity of other genes changed. The team is now investigating the structure of the first accessory gene to figure out if, and how, it could regulate the activity of other genes.
Coronavirus Covid-19 Evolution Gene Genomic Protein Research SARS SARS-Cov-2 Virus
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