Experimental evolution of an RNA virus in Caenorhabditis elegans

Abstract

The discovery of Orsay virus (OrV), the first virus infecting wild populations of Caenorhabditis elegans, has boosted studies of viral immunity pathways in this nematode. Considering the many advantages that C. elegans offers for fundamental research in host-pathogen interactions, this pathosystem has high potential to become a model system for experimental virus evolution studies. However, the evolutionary constraints – i.e, the balance between genetic variation, selection, drift and historical contingency- operating in this pathosystem have barely been explored. Here we describe for the first time an evolution experiment of two different OrV strains in C. elegans. Comparison of the two ancestral strains showed differences in infectivity and sequence, and highlighted the importance of consistently normalize viral inocula for meaningful comparisons among strains. After 10 serial passages of evolution, we report slight changes in infectivity and non-synonymous mutations fixed in the evolved viral populations. In addition, we observed numerous minor variants emerging in the viral population. These minor variants were not randomly distributed along the genome but concentrated in polymorphic genomic regions. Overall, our work established the grounds for future experimental virus evolution studies using Caenorhabditis nematodes.