PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Titus Alicai
AU  - Joseph Ndunguru
AU  - Peter Sseruwagi
AU  - Fred Tairo
AU  - Geoffrey Okao-Okuja
AU  - Resty Nanvubya
AU  - Lilliane Kiiza
AU  - Laura Kubatko
AU  - Monica A. Kehoe
AU  - Laura M. Boykin
TI  - <em>Cassava brown streak virus</em> has a rapidly evolving genome: implications for virus speciation, variability, diagnosis and host resistance
AID  - 10.1101/053546
DP  - 2016 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 053546
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/11/07/053546.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/11/07/053546.full
AB  - Cassava is a major staple food for about 800 million people in the tropics and subGtropical regions of the world. Production of cassava is significantly hampered by cassava brown streak disease (CBSD), which is caused by Cassava brown streak virus (CBSV) and Ugandan cassava brown streak virus (UCBSV). The disease is suppressing cassava yields in eastern Africa at an alarming rate. Previous studies have documented that CBSV is more devastating than UCBSV because it more readily infects both susceptible and tolerant cassava cultivars, resulting in greater yield losses. Using whole genome sequences from NGS data, we produced the first coalescentGbased species tree estimate for CBSV and UCBSV. This species framework led to the finding that CBSV has a faster rate of evolution when compared with UCBSV. Furthermore, we have discovered that in CBSV, nonsynonymous substitutions are more predominant than synonymous substitution and occur across the entire genome. All comparative analyses between CBSV and UCBSV presented here suggest that CBSV may be outsmarting the cassava immune system, thus making it more devastating and harder to control.