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Comment
. 2023 Feb 9;21(2):e3001994.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001994. eCollection 2023 Feb.

Exclusion of latecomers yields a patchwork of viral subpopulations within hosts

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Comment

Exclusion of latecomers yields a patchwork of viral subpopulations within hosts

Anice C Lowen et al. PLoS Biol. .

Abstract

Viruses arriving late to an individual cell are blocked from replicating, an effect called superinfection exclusion. A study in PLOS Biology indicates that this exclusion at the level of individual cells gives rise to a heterogenous landscape of infection within a host.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Fig 1
Fig 1. Superinfection exclusion within cells leads to spatial patterning within tissues.
At early stages of the viral cycle, cells are permissive to infection of more than one virus, whereas in later stages, superinfection exclusion is set, impeding the reception of other viruses by the cell. Recent work in PLOS Biology shows that superinfection exclusion leads to a mosaic of discrete virus populations at the tissue level.

Comment on

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