Who are giant viruses infecting in the ocean?

In a collaborative paper with the Vardi lab, we were able to link many giant virus lineages to protist hosts using #SingleCell #RNASeq. One #protist host (leucocryptos) made up less than 1% of the community, but we could still identify a cryptic viral lineage infecting it, leading to population collapse.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-024-01669-y

#marine #viruses #microbiology

Single-cell RNA-seq of the rare virosphere reveals the native hosts of giant viruses in the marine environment - Nature Microbiology

Active infections of giant viruses in their marine protists hosts are tracked at single-cell resolution, showing that, despite being rare, these viruses still impact microbial population dynamics.

^Nature