Abstract
Host-mediated, selective RNA editing of adenosines to inosines (ADAR) can lead to hypermutation in some viruses. ADAR may contribute to the control of viral infection by preventing the transcripts from being transported into the cytoplasm. However, the precise role of ADAR and how prevalent it is among insect viruses is unclear. Previous PCR-based studies showed ADAR occurs but at low frequency in sigma virus (DMelSV), a virus of Drosophila melanogaster. Here we use SOLiD™ deep-sequencing from multiple individual flies within a single host population to comprehensively evaluate the patterns of sequence variation in sigma virus from within hosts to between host populations, and to determine how much, if any, of the observed variation can be attributed to ADAR action.