#giantviruses — Public Fediverse posts

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," 

https://phys.org/news/2024-12-giant-virus-encodes-key-piece.html

#viruses #microbiology #GiantViruses #protists

Hunting down giant #viruses that attack tiny algae https://phys.org/news/2024-09-giant-viruses-tiny-algae.html

Single-cell RNA-seq of the rare #virosphere reveals the native hosts of giant viruses in the marine environment https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-024-01669-y

"#GiantViruses inhabiting the oceans infect, among others, various species of single-celled #algae... Viral infection can cause a rapid collapse of #AlgalBlooms"

4-JUN-2024
#GiantViruses found on #Greenland ice sheet
The viruses probably regulate the growth of snow #algae on the ice by infecting them. Knowing how to control these #viruses could help us reduce some of the ice from melting.
<< that's fascinating but I really don't think they are going to stop the #ClimateCatastrophe for us.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1047048 #science #ecology #environment #microbiology

Giant viral signatures on the Greenland ice sheet

https://doi.org/10.1186/s40168-024-01796-y

#viruses #GiantViruses #polar

A giant virus infecting the amoeboflagellate Naegleria

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-024-47308-2

#viruses #giantViruses #microbiology

Another interesting study suggesting that giant viruses can control phototaxis in their hosts during infection

"Hijacking of internal calcium dynamics by intracellularly residing viral rhodopsins"

"... we show here that light irradiation reversibly modified tail movements of OLPVR1-expressing frog tadpoles."

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-44548-6

#viruses #GiantViruses #virology

Gene duplication as a major force driving the genome expansion in some giant viruses

https://journals.asm.org/doi/full/10.1128/jvi.01309-23

#GiantViruses #viruses #virology #genomics

Kratosvirus quantuckense: the history and novelty of an algal bloom disrupting virus and a model for giant virus research

https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2023.1284617

#viruses #marine #ocean #HAB #GiantViruses

Latest taxonomic update for giant viruses, including a new name for the famous mimivirus (now Mimivirus bradfordmassiliense)

Taxonomy for the titans of the virosphere!

https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00705-023-05906-3

#GiantViruses #viruses #virology

#GiantViruses encode many strange genes in their genomes - partial TCA cycles, actins and myosins, nutrient transporters, etc

What are they doing with all of these crazy genes?

We discuss this in a recent article - big thanks to all of the collaborators who were willing to help write an extensive review!

Virologs, viral mimicry, and #virocell metabolism: the expanding scale of cellular functions encoded in the complex genomes of giant #viruses 

https://academic.oup.com/femsre/article/47/5/fuad053/7280998?login=false

#virology

Virophages are viruses that infect giant viruses, typically resulting in a lower burst size for the giant virus. In our latest preprint we report virophage-like sequences associated with insect poxviruses.

Their genomes of these elements are really interesting. This also opens up the possibility that hyperparasitic viruses are associated with a much broader range of DNA viruses than is commonly thought.

https://doi.org/10.1101/2023.10.16.562556

#viruses #virology #poxviruses #GiantViruses

Nice study on polar giant viruses!

Genomic adaptation of giant viruses in polar oceans

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-41910-6

#viruses #GiantViruses #virology #oceanography #marine #ocean #polar

A fantastical world of potential giant viruses lurks beneath the soil

"These and other peculiar-looking shapes “clearly tell us that we’ve underestimated how structurally diverse these viruses are,”"

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/potential-giant-viruses-soil-microbiology

#viruses #giantViruses

Phylogenetic diversity and functional potential of large and cell-associated viruses in the Bay of Bengal

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.07.17.548743v1

#viruses #ecology #marine #ocean #giantViruses

Amazing structural diversity of giant virus-like particles in forest soil

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2023.06.30.546935v1

#viruses #giantViruses #microbiology

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

It's been a big mystery why giant viruses encode so many proteins involved in vesicular transport and cytoskeletal dynamics. This interesting paper examined a dynamin homolog and found evidence that it's involved in mitochondrial membrane remodelling during infection.

A Novel Group of Dynamin-Related Proteins Shared by Eukaryotes and Giant Viruses Is Able to Remodel Mitochondria From Within the Matrix

https://academic.oup.com/mbe/article/40/6/msad134/7190697?login=false

#viruses #GiantViruses #virology

Our latest work on marine giant virus diversity -

Assessing the biogeography of marine giant viruses in four oceanic transects

https://www.nature.com/articles/s43705-023-00252-6

#viruses #marine #ocean #giantviruses

Link between herpesviruses and giant viruses no longer missing - Enlarge / Electron micrograph of herpesviruses. (credit: Callista Image... - https://arstechnica.com/?p=1934235 #giantviruses #evolution #genomics #virology #science #biology #herpes

Important study describing a new phylum of herpesvirus relatives that is abundant in the ocean -

Mirusviruses link herpesviruses to giant viruses

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-023-05962-4

I was honored to be asked to review this paper! Wonderful work.

#virology #viruses #herpesviruses #giantViruses

Near-atomic architecture of Singapore grouper iridovirus and implications for giant virus assembly

"The viral inner membrane-integrated anchor protein colocalizes with the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), supporting the hypothesis that the biogenesis of the inner membrane is associated with the ER"

Nice confirmation about where the viral inner membrane comes from.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-37681-9

#viruses #giantViruses #virology

Widespread Distribution and Evolution of Poxviral Entry-Fusion Complex Proteins in Giant Viruses

https://journals.asm.org/doi/epub/10.1128/spectrum.04944-22

#GiantViruses #Viruses #poxviruses

Giant Virus Infection Signatures Are Modulated by Euphotic Zone Depth Strata and Iron Regimes of the Subantarctic Southern Ocean

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/msystems.01260-22

#viruses #giantviruses #marine

If anyone is interested in #GiantViruses, large #Phages, or the ecological and evolutionary complexity of #viruses in general, you may wish to check out a review I wrote with @giant_virus

https://www.mdpi.com/2218-273X/12/8/1061

This was a lot of fun to write! And part of a special issue commemorating Ivanovsky's discovery!

Important recent study on #GiantViruses.

I was always curious why genomes of giant viruses encode so many capsid proteins- turns out they are used in many complex modifications on the capsid surface. What amazing complexity of virion structure!

"Near-atomic, non-icosahedrally averaged structure of giant virus Paramecium bursaria chlorella virus 1"

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-022-34218-4

#viruses #virology

Happy to share our latest work on marine giant viruses!

Diversity and genomics of giant viruses in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fmicb.2022.1021923/full

#Marine #GiantViruses #Viruses #Virology

#introduction
Hello everyone!
I’m an associate prof at Virginia Tech studying viral diversity. Lately my group has been focusing on giant viruses, but we are also interested in other protist viruses, and the role of viral endogenization in host genome evolution.
#GiantViruses #ViralDiversity #TreeOfLife #Protists #Microbiology #Bioinformatics #Evolution #Virology #Genomics
Recently we have been examining the strange and complex genes encoded in giant virus genomes!
https://doi.org/10.1093/femsre/fuad053