Questions on viral population biology to complete dengue puzzle

摘要

The mechanisms driving the current evolution of dengue remain unclear. We argue that disregarding the population biology of viruses has been a limiting factor, and present a hypothetical framework based on viral population biology. This allows us to pinpoint three flaws that need to be addressed: (1) a large underestimation of the viral polymorphism within populations; (2) a disregard of viral loci other than that encoding the antigenic envelope; and (3) the neglect of host-driven selection, especially that of vector-driven selection.