Codon usage in Alphabaculovirus and Betabaculovirus hosted by the same insect species is weak, selection dominated and exhibits no more similar patterns than expected.

Mutations shape synonymous codon usage bias in certain organism genomes, while selection shapes it in others. Lepidopteran-specific Alphabaculovirus and Betabaculovirus are two large genera in the family of Baculoviridae. In this study, we analyzed the codon usage patterns in 17 baculoviruses, including 10 alphabaculoviruses and 7 betabaculoviruses, which were isolated from seven insect species, and we characterized the codon usage patterns between Alphabaculovirus and Betabaculovirus. Our results show that all the baculoviruses possessed a general weak trend of codon bias. The differences of ENc (effective number of codons) values, nucleotide contents and the impacts of nucleotide content on ENc value within alpha-/betabaculovirus pairs were independent of whether the host species are the same or different. Furthermore, the majority of amino acid sequences adopted codons unequally in all viruses, but the numbers of common preferred codons between alpha- and betabaculoviruses hosted by the same insect species were not significantly different from the differences observed between alpha- and betabaculoviruses hosted by different insect species. In addition, the amino acids that adopt the same synonymous codon composition between alpha- and betabaculoviruses hosted by the same insect species were statistically as few as those between alpha- and betabaculoviruses hosted by different insect species. Correspondence analysis revealed that no major factors resulted in the codon bias in these baculoviruses, implying multiple minor influential factors exist. Neutrality plot analysis indicated that selection pressure dominated mutations in shaping the codon usage. However, the levels of selection pressure were not significantly different among viruses hosted by the same insect species. We expect that evolution would cause the alpha- and betabaculoviruses hosted by the same insect species to share more patterns, but this effect was not observed.