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Redundancy is a fundamental element of the genetic code: Numerous different nucleotide triplets (“codons”) can encode a single amino acid. However, the various codons for a particular amino acid (“synonymous codons”) are rarely used with equal frequency. Similarly, some synonymous codon pairs are used more or less often than would be expected by chance.
Investigators recently synthesized viable polioviruses that incorporated the same amino-acid sequences as wild-type poliovirus but used rare codon pairs. Now, researchers have extended this work to assess the effect of codon-pair manipulation on viral replication and immunogenicity. Aided by a computer algorithm, the researchers designed and synthesized polioviruses containing the same amino-…