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ORIGIN OF MITOCHONDRION. “Polintoviruses appear to have evolved from bacteriophages of the family Tectiviridae, at the onset of eukaryogenesis. This ancestral tectivirus most likely entered the protoeukaryotic cell along with the α-proteobacterial endosymbiont that subsequently gave rise to the mitochondrion.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

CENTRAL HUB. “Polintoviruses share homologous genes and gene blocks with many other viruses, transposons, and plasmids. In the network of evolutionary connections between all these groups of mobile elements where the edges are homologous genes, Polintoviruses represent the central hub that shares the maximum number of genes with other nodes.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

WIDESPREAD. “Polintons/polintoviruses are missing in only one of the five major eukaryotic superkingdoms, namely Archaeplastida, which includes land plants as well as red and green algae.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn

VIRUS-TRANSPOSONS. “Some groups of polintoviruses have lost capsid protein genes and apparently became bona fide transposons, for which the name polintons can be retained. Polintoviruses are the second major group of eukaryotic dsDNA viruses, after the “Megavirales,” that is represented in widely diverse unicellular eukaryotes along with many animals.” 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

TWO LIFE FORMS. “Polintons are actually polintoviruses, a novel group of dsDNA viruses that can exist also in the form of transposon-like provirus elements that are integrated with the host genomes and transmitted vertically across host generations.” 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

LARGE DIVERSE GENOMES. “The genomes of Polintons are large by transposon standards, 15–20 kb, and encode arrays of diverse proteins. However, several proteins are shared by all Polintons, including protein-primed type B DNA polymerase (pPolB), RVE family integrase, FtsK-like DNA-packaging ATPase, and an adenovirus-type cysteine protease implicated in the maturation of capsid proteins.” https://lnkd.in/eU7uHHB 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

LARGE DIVERSE GENOMES. “The genomes of Polintons are large by transposon standards, 15–20 kb, and encode arrays of diverse proteins. However, several proteins are shared by all Polintons, including protein-primed type B DNA polymerase (pPolB), RVE family integrase, FtsK-like DNA-packaging ATPase, and an adenovirus-type cysteine protease implicated in the maturation of capsid proteins.” http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/nyas.12728/full View in LinkedIn