RT Journal Article SR Electronic T1 Cassava brown streak virus has a rapidly evolving genome: implications for virus speciation, variability, diagnosis and host resistance JF bioRxiv FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory SP 053546 DO 10.1101/053546 A1 Titus Alicai A1 Joseph Ndunguru A1 Peter Sseruwagi A1 Fred Tairo A1 Geoffrey Okao-Okuja A1 Resty Nanvubya A1 Lilliane Kiiza A1 Laura Kubatko A1 Monica A. Kehoe A1 Laura M. Boykin YR 2016 UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2016/11/07/053546.abstract 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.