Discuss virus simulations to see mutation and viral evolution in action.

This week you will look at virus simulations to see mutation and viral evolution in action. The assignment is a bit different in that you will need to work out of a workbook, which explains the simulations and backgrounds then answer the questions at the end in the program.

You have already worked with simulations in the last Sim exercise. Just to remind you that a simulation is a simplified dynamic (changing) model. As such, the viral growth model does not include information about the host cell.

To get started, open the exercise in SimBio and open the notebook. Read through the notebook from page 1 through the end, stopping to use the simulations and fill out the pages (you can do this on a separate piece of paper) as you go. The paper can then be uploaded here with the following labeled answers: Exercise 1: 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 Exercise 2: 3.1, 6.1, 7.1, 10.1, 13.1, 13.2, 14.1, 20.1, 21.1, 22.1, 23.1, 24.1, 25.1, 25.2, 30.1,30.2, 32.1,32.2,32.3 Exercise 3: 5.1,5.2,7.1,7.2,8.1,8.2,8.3 Exercise 4: 3.1,7.18.1,9.1,9.2 Exercise 5: 3.1,7.1,7.2,7.3,7.4, Exercise 6, 1.1.

THEN you can do the graded questions in the program and ask me which are correct.

This assignment may take you a good 9 hours, so plan ahead and work through it bit by bit.

Some useful concepts:

RNA is made of 4 different nucleotides ATP, UTP, CTP, and GTP and the sequence these nucleotides are in determines which proteins a virus’ host cell makes. They can mutate at a high rate, causing evolution (in this case without natural selection). If a certain mutant is selected against by being, say, attacked by the immune system, then the population of virions (viral particles) has experienced natural selection. Evolutionary fitness is how likely an individual (in this case a virion) is likely to mature and create more of itself with a host. Genetic drift is evolution that happens in small isolated virion populations and is often a random process.