The origins of viruses: evolutionary dynamics of the escape hypothesis

Journal article

Abstract:: Introduction: Several hypotheses exist about how viruses first emerged on Earth. Understanding whether viruses escaped from cells, remained from devolved cells, or emerged before cells is key to comprehending the origins of viruses and life in general.

Methods: Here, we analyze the evolutionary dynamics of the escape hypothesis (as proposed by Forterre and Krupovic) for viral origins. We developed theoretical and numerical approaches to investigate the dynamics of the virus escape hypothesis and highlighted which parameters (e.g., maturation rate, infected cell death rate, virus replication rate, infection rate) influence virus evolutionary origins and reinfection dynamics.

Results: Critically, we demonstrate that viral death rate (μ_V) and infected cell death rate (μ_I) must exceed a certain threshold for viruses to emerge and persist through the escape hypothesis. Furthermore, we demonstrate that unfaithful or unequal ribocell division is a necessary component of the escape hypothesis. We also examined early virus strategies for proliferation by comparing budding and lysing virus reproduction modes.

Discussion: Our results highlight the importance of certain biological characteristics (e.g., maturation rate, infection rate, lysing rates, budding rates), required for the emergence of viruses via the escape hypothesis. The model we present here provides a sound basis for further work on the evolutionary dynamics of virus origins.

Files:: OBrien_et_al_2025_The_origins_of.pdf

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Language:: English
Keywords:: evolution

mathematical modelling

origins of life

virus dynamics

virus proliferation

virus replication
Pubs id:: 2100910
Local pid:: pubs:2100910
Deposit date:: 2025-03-28
ARK identifier:: ark:/29072/ora_f7af95c10a1c4687884d75aab3c8402d

Copyright holder:: O’Brien et al.
Rights statement:: Copyright © 2025 O’Brien, George and Bonsall. 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) and the copyright owner(s) 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.

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