Highly Conserved Core Residues Define Old-World Alphaviruses and Trace Early Evolutionary Divergence
Wendy Carolina Piñ-Ruiz, Luis Rubén Jaime-Rocha, Andrea Castorena-Robles, Roger Castells‐Graells, Roya Zandi, Juan Carlos Muñoz-Escalante, Mauricio Comas‐García
The paper identifies conserved residues in Old-World alphaviruses that govern capsid structure and traces their evolutionary divergence, suggesting reduced assembly efficiency in New-World lineages may contribute to attenuation.
Journal of Molecular Evolution · Jul 27, 2026Peer-reviewedEvolutionary Biology