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Items tagged with: viruses






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I was very fortunate to collaborate with Jonatas Abrahao on this study, in which his group discovered a novel giant virus with remarkable morphology!

Few giant viruses with a tail have been characterized so far, but recent findings suggest that these structures may be more common than previously thought.

Naiavirus: an enveloped giant virus with a pleomorphic, flexible tail

nature.com/articles/s41467-025…

#viruses #virology #microbiology #science






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Viruses that roam the fungal kingdom knowablemagazine.org/content/a…

"today, scientists researching fungal #viruses are enjoying a golden age of discovery... finding all sorts of weird and wonderful interactions between #fungi and their viruses and even between fungal viruses and #plants or #animals. Most fungal viruses don’t seem to do much of anything to their hosts, but others cause sickness or offer surprising benefits."


Giant viruses integrate into the genomes of money protists. Our latest study adds the model protist Euglena to the list

"Giant endogenous viral elements in the genome of the model protist Euglena gracilis reveal past interactions with giant viruses"

biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20…

#viruses #protists #microbiology #genomics


Video and article from our lab about our latest giant virus paper

"Researchers discover large dormant virus can be reactivated in model green alga"

news.vt.edu/articles/2025/04/r…

And link to original paper
science.org/stoken/author-toke…

#viruses #science #virology #microbes


We found a really cool giant virus inside the genome of a green alga, and it has a very strange infection cycle that is hard to detect.

There are reports going back decades of viral particles spontaneously appearing in pure cultures of green algae, so this phenomenon seems quite common but mostly overlooked.

science.org/doi/10.1126/scienc…

#viruses #microbiology #algae




Giant virus encodes key piece of protein-making machinery of cellular life

"Viruses are integral to the functioning of ocean ecosystems, influencing biological productivity, shifting community interactions, and driving evolutionary change,"

phys.org/news/2024-12-giant-vi…

#viruses #microbiology #GiantViruses #protists


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Virus snowflakes from the lab holiday party. T4 and mimivirus are the best, of course.

#holidays #viruses #snowflakes


We have a new preprint describing a method for #bacteriophage phylogenetics and comparative genomics.

Maybe useful for those interested in all the amazing #phages out there and their bizarre mosaic genomes

Towards a unifying phylogenomic framework for tailed phages

biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20…

#viruses #microbiology


Very nice study from Henshaw et al shows that #marine heterotrophic bacteria can sense and move towards cyanobacteria when the latter are infected with #viruses.

Presumably the signatures of early infection are a sign that nutrients from a lysed cell will be available soon.

This is a nice study that has implications for understanding the role of viruses in the #ocean.

Article here:
nature.com/articles/s41564-024…

And we wrote a commentary here:
nature.com/articles/s41564-024…

#microbiology



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New #ISEPpapers #preprint! Viral infection to the raphidophycean alga #Heterosigma akashiwo affects both intracellular organic matter composition and dynamics of a coastal prokaryotic community biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20…

#protists #algae #viruses #microbes #biology





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New #ISEPpapers! Genomic analyses of Symbiomonas scintillans show no evidence for endosymbiotic #bacteria but does reveal the presence of #GiantViruses journals.plos.org/plosgenetics… #protists #symbiosis #viruses #genomics #microbes @PLOS by Anna Cho et al.



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New Mutations Identified in #BirdFlu #Virus
The virus, called #H5N1, has infected #cows in at least 36 #herds in nine states, raising fears that #milk could be infectious — concerns now largely put to rest — and highlighting the risk that many #viruses might jump across species on crowded #farms.
A #genetic analysis sheds light on when the #outbreak began, how the virus spread and where it may be going.
nytimes.com/2024/05/03/health/…
archive.ph/8sQTX



Widespread occurrence and diverse origins of polintoviruses influence lineage-specific genome dynamics in stony corals

academic.oup.com/ve/advance-ar…

#viruses #coral #evolution #genomics





Happy to share the latest manuscript from our lab, in which we propose that eukaryotes evolved from a genomic chimera of Asgard archaea and giant viruses.

biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/20…

This is a controversial topic, but we believe we have strong evidence to suggest a critical viral role in eukaryogenesis.

#viruses #protists #eukaryotes #evolution #TreeOfLIfe #archaea


Hot springs viruses at Yellowstone National Park have ancient origins and are adapted to thermophilic hosts

nature.com/articles/s42003-024…

#viruses #virology #extremophiles


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Viruses Finally Reveal Their Complex Social Life
quantamagazine.org/viruses-fin… by @Carl_Zimmer

Open questions in the social lives of viruses academic.oup.com/jeb/article/3…

"New research has uncovered a social world of #viruses full of cheating, cooperation and other intrigues, suggesting that viruses make sense only as members of a community."


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.

nature.com/articles/s41564-024…

#marine #viruses #microbiology




The Simons Foundation has amazing #postdoc #fellowships for anyone interested in #marine microbial #ecology or #evolution.

I'd love to sponsor anyone interested in viral diversity!

Please spread the word!

simonsfoundation.org/grant/sim…

#viruses #microbiology

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