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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article

Front. Microbiol.
Sec. Virology
Volume 15 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1490076
This article is part of the Research Topic Mammarenaviruses: Pathogenesis, Transmission, and Treatment View all 3 articles

A study on the codon usage bias of arenavirus common genes

Provisionally accepted
Pablo Daniel Thomas Pablo Daniel Thomas Maria Florencia Ferrer Maria Florencia Ferrer Mauricio J Lozano Mauricio J Lozano Ricardo Martin Gomez Ricardo Martin Gomez *
  • Biological sciences, CONICET Institute of Biotechnology and Molecular Biology (IBBM), La Plata, Buenos Aires, Argentina

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The Arenaviridae family consists of the genera Mammarenavirus, Reptarenavirus, Hartmanivirus, Antennavirus and Innmovirus. The codon usage bias between the different genera has not yet been studied comparatively.We retrieved the arenavirus genome sequences from public databases and used bioinformatics tools to compare the codon usage bias between the different genera for the GPC, NP and L proteins, common to all arenaviruses.Results and Discussion: Hartmaniviruses show a larger codon usage bias, which can be partially explained by mutational bias. Patterns of relative use of synonymous codons were maintained within genera, with individual genera differing in their preference for the third nucleotide position in synonymous codons. Of the three proteins examined, the ARN polymerase protein exhibited a slightly stronger codon usage bias, but overall, the patterns were repeated between genera for the three proteins examined. Our results suggest that codon usage pattern bias in arenaviruses is influenced by selection pressure and to a lesser extent by mutational selection.

    Keywords: Arenavirus, codon usage, phylogeny, Mammarenavirus, evolution

    Received: 02 Sep 2024; Accepted: 30 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Thomas, Ferrer, Lozano and Gomez. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Ricardo Martin Gomez, Biological sciences, CONICET Institute of Biotechnology and Molecular Biology (IBBM), La Plata, 1900, Buenos Aires, Argentina

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