20th Annual Student Research Conference
Interdisciplinary
Phylogeography of the Envelope Protein of the Engue-2 virus (Flaviviridae) throughout Latin America
Madalyn E. Schill
Mr. Pamela J. Ryan and Dr. Anton Weisstein, Faculty Mentors
Dengue is a flavivirus existing in four serotypes (dengue-1, 2, 3, 4) that affects 50 million people annually, killing 2.5% of its victims. This project examined the genetic variation of the envelope protein within dengue-2. Because the geographic overlap of serotypes is the factor that causes the majority of deaths, discovery of the largest influences on dengue-2 evolution and geographic spread can aid in preventing the further dispersal of severe cases of dengue. Phylogenetic trees from 62 RNA sequences were constructed using the neighbor-joining and parsimony methods. The trees were then nested according to Templeton's cladistic algorithm and the clades were tested for statistically significant relationships between genetic and geographic variance using the software package GeoDis. After analyzing both trees, Templeton's inference key was used to identify underlying evolutionary patterns in the data. No large scale evolutionary patterns were found, although some small scale patterns were observed. The use of neighbor-joining vs. parsimony phylogenetic reconstruction methods did not influence the phylogeographic results of the study.
Keywords:
Topic(s):Interdisciplinary
Presentation Type: Poster
Session: 3-6
Location: OP Lobby
Time: 4:15 pm