Giant viruses share a surprising common invasion blueprint
Abergel C, Abrahão JS, Coulibaly F, Fischer M, Jeudy S
Plant Signaling
The algae living in your backyard pond are hosts to one branch of these giant viruses, so understanding how they infect cells helps explain the invisible population swings that keep pond and lake ecosystems in balance.
There's a group of unusually large viruses that infect a huge range of living things, including some algae and other microscopic organisms many gardeners never think about. Scientists compared how these different viruses enter cells, set up little factories inside them, and make copies of themselves, and found they all follow a surprisingly similar game plan despite looking very different on the outside.
Key Findings
The review compares infection cycles across 8 major virus groups including chloroviruses (which infect algae), poxviruses, and mimiviruses.
All studied viruses share key infection stages: membrane-fusion entry, phase-separated viral factories, genome replication, and a distinctive 'crescent' stage during virion assembly.
Despite genome sizes and virion shapes varying enormously across the phylum, the core infection strategy appears conserved from early eukaryotic evolution onward.
chevron_right Technical Summary
Scientists reviewed how a huge family of giant viruses, which infect everything from algae to humans, break into cells and build factories inside them to copy themselves. The findings reveal a shared viral playbook across wildly different hosts and virus shapes, which could help researchers understand disease and ecosystem dynamics.
Abstract Preview
Original paper
Infection cycles of viruses of the phylum Nucleocytoviricota.
The phylum Nucleocytoviricota, formerly known as nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs), comprises evolutionarily related viruses with remarkably diverse genome sizes, coding capacities and v...
open_in_new Read full abstractAbstract copyright held by the original publisher.
Was this useful?
Want to tell us more? (optional)
Thanks for the note!
Something went wrong — please try again.
Too many submissions. Try again in an hour.
Nanoplastics interfere with plant-mycorrhizal communication and limit plant growth.
Microplastics breaking down in your garden soil are quietly strangling the beneficial fungi that help your vegetables absorb phosphorus and other nutrients, ...
Soil health is the capacity of soil to function as a living ecosystem, supporting complex interactions between microorganisms, soil fauna, and plant communities. For plant science, soil health is critical because these biological and chemical soil properties directly control nutrient availability,
arrow_forward Explore topic