Happy to share a collaborative preprint with Assaf Vardi's group in which we use single cell transcriptomics to link giant viruses with their native hosts during a marine algal bloom!

This approach is quite sensitive - we were able to identify viruses infecting one protist group that made up <0.5% of the community.

Homing in on the rare virosphere reveals the native host of giant viruses

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.27.546645v1

#viruses #giantViruses #ocean #marine

Homing in on the rare virosphere reveals the native host of giant viruses

Giant viruses (phylum Nucleocytoviricota) are globally distributed in aquatic ecosystems They play major roles as evolutionary drivers of eukaryotic plankton and regulators of global biogeochemical cycles.

^bioRxiv