This volume brings together recent developments in quasispecies theory extended to variable environments and practical applications in elucidating viral dynamics and treatment designs. In particular, the existence of an error threshold in rugged fitness landscapes has opened the way to a new antiviral strategy termed lethal mutagenesis, which is now under intensive theoretical, experimental and clinical investigation. As such the book explains how an understanding of quasispecies dynamics within infected organisms has increased our knowledge of viral disease events. From a clinical perspective, population dynamics highlights important problems for viral disease control, such as the selection of drug-resistant mutants that often accompanies treatment failures, and suggests means of increasing the effectiveness of antiviral treatments. The book is intended for students and scientists interested in basic and applied aspects of biophysics, chemistry, biology, evolution and medical virology.

Continuous genetic variation and selection of virus subpopulations in the course of RNA virus replications are intimately related to viral disease mechanisms. The central topics of this volume are the origins of the quasispecies concept, and the implications of quasispecies dynamics for viral populations.

Progress in Drug Research is a prestigious book series which provides extensive expert-written reviews on a wide spectrum of highly topical areas in current pharmaceutical and pharmacological research. It serves as an important source of information for researchers concerned with drug research and all those who need to keep abreast of the many recent developments in the quest for new and better medicines.

Virus as Composition, Complexity, Quasispecies, Dynamics, and Biological Implications, Second Edition, explains the fundamental concepts surrounding viruses as complex populations during replication in infected hosts. Fundamental phenomena in virus behavior, such as adaptation to changing environments, capacity to produce disease, and the probability to be transmitted or respond to treatment all depend on virus population numbers. Concepts such as quasispecies dynamics, mutations rates, viral fitness, the effect of bottleneck events, population numbers in virus transmission and disease emergence, and new antiviral strategies are included. The book's main concepts are framed by recent observations on general virus diversity derived from metagenomic studies and current views on the origin and role of viruses in the evolution of the biosphere.

This book reviews the early evidence of genetic variability of rhabdoviruses. It describes data on the variability in the genomes of closely related virus strains and the variability that can be observed within a given virus strain.

This book describes the basic features of virus replication, and points out how these features lead into the diverse biologies and genetics of the various viruses.

This book analyzes the nature of polio replication complexes with respect to subcellular fractionation, responses to detergent treatments, and the viral/cellular proteins involved. It presents models for both initiation and elongation of RNA chains by the poliovirus replicase.

This volume brings together recent developments in quasispecies theory extended to variable environments and practical applications in elucidating viral dynamics and treatment designs. In particular, the existence of an error threshold in rugged fitness landscapes has opened the way to a new antiviral strategy termed lethal mutagenesis, which is now under intensive theoretical, experimental and clinical investigation. As such the book explains how an understanding of quasispecies dynamics within infected organisms has increased our knowledge of viral disease events. From a clinical perspective, population dynamics highlights important problems for viral disease control, such as the selection of drug-resistant mutants that often accompanies treatment failures, and suggests means of increasing the effectiveness of antiviral treatments. The book is intended for students and scientists interested in basic and applied aspects of biophysics, chemistry, biology, evolution and medical virology.

Der vorliegende 48. Band der Reihe "Fortschritte der Arzneimittelfor- schung" enthalt acht Beitrage, die wiederum von anerkannten Forschern verfasst wurden. Ausserdem sind auch in diesem Band ein Stichwortver- zeichnis des Bandes sowie ein Autoren-und Titelverzeichnis und ein Titel- verzeichnis aller 48 Bande enthalten. Der Leser hat dadurch die Mog- lichkeit, nicht nur den vorliegenden Band zu konsultieren, sondern auch alle bisher erschienenen Bande quasi als enzyklopadisches N achschla- gewerk zu benutzen. Da alle Beitrage umfangreiche Literaturnachweise enthalten, ist die Moglichkeit des Zugriffes auf Original-Publikationen gegeben, was dem aktiven Forscher besonders wichtig ist und seinen eige- nen Arbeiten Impulse geben kann. Die Artikel des 48. Bandes behandeln neue Entwicklungen der Genetik, der enzymatischen Herstellung von komplexen Peptiden und bringen die neuesten Erkenntnisse der Apoptose unserem Verstandnis naher. Immun- therapie bei Hirnerkrankungen und psychischen Storungen, der Einsatz vonNaturproduktenzur Vorbeugung von Krebserkrankungen, das beun- ruhigende Anwachsen der Arzneimittelresistenz, die Mannigfaltigkeit der Dopamin-Rezeptor-Wirkung und die faszinierende Darstellung einer grosseren Gruppe von neuartigen Nukleosiden als Arzneimittel runden den vorliegenden Band der "Fortschritte der Arzneimittelforschung" ab und bieten dem Leser viel Neuartiges und Interessantes.

Progress in Drug Research is a prestigious book series which provides extensive expert-written reviews on a wide spectrum of highly topical areas in current pharmaceutical and pharmacological research. It serves as an important source of information for researchers concerned with drug research and all those who need to keep abreast of the many recent developments in the quest for new and better medicines.

Virus as Populations: Composition, Complexity, Dynamics, and Biological Implications explains fundamental concepts that arise from regarding viruses as complex populations when replicating in infected hosts. Fundamental phenomena in virus behavior, such as adaptation to changing environments, capacity to produce disease, probability to be transmitted or response to treatment, depend on virus population numbers and in the variations of such population numbers. Concepts such as quasispecies dynamics, mutations rates, viral fitness, the effect of bottleneck events, population numbers in virus transmission and disease emergence, new antiviral strategies such as lethal mutagenesis, and extensions of population heterogeneity to nonviral systems are included. These main concepts of the book are framed in recent observations on general virus diversity derived from metagenomic studies, and current views on the origin of viruses and the role of viruses in the evolution of the biosphere.

New viral diseases are emerging continuously. Viruses adapt to new environments at astounding rates. Genetic variability of viruses jeopardizes vaccine efficacy. For many viruses mutants resistant to antiviral agents or host immune responses arise readily, for example, with HIV and influenza.These variations are all of utmost importance for human and animal health as they have prevented us from controlling these epidemic pathogens.
This book focuses on the mechanisms that viruses use to evolve, survive and cause disease in their hosts. Covering human, animal, plant and bacterial viruses, it provides both the basic foundations for the evolutionary dynamics of viruses and specific examples of emerging diseases explained by the evolutionary flexibility of the viral agents that circulate in a continuously changing earth environment.
* NEW to this edition - chapters on the molecular basis of copying fidelity of viral polymerases, methods to establish phylogenetic relationships among viruses, and the mechanisms of cellular RNA interference and editing functions as they affect virus evolution.
* UNIQUE - combines theoretical concepts in evolution with detailed analyses of the evolution of important virus groups.
* Bacterial, plant, animal and human viruses are compared regarding their interaction with their hosts.