Month: September 2022

NUCLEAR ESCAPE. “Polintoviruses reside in the nucleus of the host cell and, accordingly, rely on host enzymes for transcription. A key event for the emergence of the “Megavirales” was the escape from the nucleus, concomitant with the acquisition of the RNAP and the capping apparatus from the host.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

CYTOPLASMIC REPLICONS. “The escaped element that would replicate in the cytoplasm using the ancestral Polinton pPolB spawned two groups of mobile elements, namely cytoplasmic plasmids (so far found only in fungi) and the “Megavirales,” which share the unique trifunctional capping enzyme, RNAP, and D11-like helicase.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

Bottle and can deposit return scheme gets green light in England. Finally!! https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/27/bottle-and-can-deposit-return-scheme-gets-green-light-in-england?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other View in LinkedIn

TWO VIRAL LIFE PATHS. By contrast with the Polintoviruses, “the “Megavirales” evolved via the route of increasing complexity and autonomy.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

VIRAL PARASITES OF GIANT VIRUSES. “The virophages retain many features of polintoviruses but followed a different strategy to adapt to reproduction in the cytoplasm of the host cells. Instead of encoding their own machinery for cytoplasmic propagation, these viruses evolved to parasitize their giant relatives by exploiting the transcription apparatus and other functions of the giant viruses.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

EUKARYOTIC VIRUSES. “There are 10 families of eukaryotic dsDNA viruses that do not show clear evolutionary relationship to the polintoviruses or the “Megavirales”. These viruses are characterized by rather narrow host ranges, most of them being found only in animals.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

ENORMOUS BREAKTHROUGH. “The discovery of giant viruses (sometimes called “giruses”) infecting protists, pioneered by the isolation of Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus, is one of the most unexpected and certainly the most widely publicized breakthrough in virology in decades.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

THE BRIDGE TO FAR. “The giant viruses defy the textbook definition of viruses as “filterable” infectious agents because their enormous virions do not pass bacterial filters, and once and for all invalidate the separation between viruses and cellular life forms based on size.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

BREAKING THE MOLD. “Not only are the particles of giant viruses bigger than the cells of numerous bacteria and archaea, but also the genomes of pandoraviruses, the current virus world record holders at approximately 2.5 Mb, are substantially larger and richer in gene content than many bacterial and archaeal genomes, from both parasites and free-living microbes, and even the genomes of some parasitic eukaryotes, such as Microsporidia.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

TIP OF THE ICEBERG. “The recent identification of pandoraviruses and the pithovirus, which are not only huge, by viral standards, but also possess a novel, asymmetrical virion structure, shows that the actual diversity of giant viruses remains to be uncovered.” https://lnkd.in/eU7uHHB View in LinkedIn