Genomics and computational science for virus research

Book excerpt: A biologically striking and clinically important feature of viruses is their rapid evolutionary dynamics in nature. The continual interactions between viruses and host organisms promote quick changes in virus populations, eventually leading to co-evolution of viruses and hosts for their survival. The structural and functional information on the interactions between viruses and hosts should provide a molecular and biological basis to understand infection, replication, cell/host-tropism, immune escape, pathogenesis, and direction of evolution of viruses. The information is also essential to develop methods to control transmission and replication of pathogenic viruses. However, the integrated information on the structure, function, and evolution of viruses and hosts has remained poorly accumulated, partly due to the limitation of analytical methods. Recent progress in genome science and computational approach may open up a new avenue of research of the interactions between viruses and hosts by integrating information on the structures, functions, and evolution. In this Research Topic, we welcome papers concerning the computer-assisted structural and functional studies based on genomic information, with theoretical or in combination with experimental approaches, for understanding molecules, infection, replication, cell/host-tropism, immune escape, pathogenesis, and evolution of viruses in nature.