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MOVING TARGET. “Viruses possess signature genes, such as those encoding capsid protein, that provide for assignment of novel genomes to a particular family of viruses even in the absence of close relatives. The flip side of the coin is that viruses typically evolve much faster than cellular life forms so that finding homologs of virus genes is often challenging.” https://lnkd.in/dyavu7e View in LinkedIn

IP CONTEST. “The CRISPR–Cas9 system is at the centre of a patent row.“ https://lnkd.in/dvzwegh View in LinkedIn

THE VIRAL EXCEPTION. “The difficulties of metagenomic genome discovery are alleviated to a considerable extent when it comes to discovery of new virus genomes. Viral genomes are relatively small, for many important and abundant virus families, only several kilobases (kb) long, so that assembly of complete viral genome is often feasible.” https://lnkd.in/dyavu7e View in LinkedIn

CHALLENGES. “Sequences with high similarity to those from known organisms are readily assignable but those from truly novel genomes can be difficult to place. A further difficulty for metagenomic discovery is the correct assembly of long contigs.” https://lnkd.in/dyavu7e View in LinkedIn

THE PROBLEM. “Metagenomes, at least in principle, are unbiased representations of the environs from which they originate (apart from possible sequencing biases). Herein, also lies the intrinsic weakness of metagenomics: technically, it is never known which organism a given sequence comes from.” https://lnkd.in/dyavu7e View in LinkedIn

CULTURE REQUIREMENT. “Metagenomes are not constrained by the inherent requirement of traditional sequence databases that for genome sequencing, an organism has to be clearly identified and, at least in the case of microbes, grown in the laboratory.” https://lnkd.in/dyavu7e View in LinkedIn

TRANSITIONAL FORMS. “Polintons (also known as Mavericks) are large DNA transposons that are widespread in the genomes of eukaryotes. We have recently shown that Polintons encode virus capsid proteins, which suggests that these transposons might form virions, at least under some conditions.” https://lnkd.in/dRhP7NQ View in LinkedIn

GLOBAL ROLES. “Bacteria are often referred to as the engines that drive nutrient cycles in the marine environment. They do this by catalyzing key processes such as CO2 fixation, organic matter recycling, conversion of nitrogen, and removal of toxic hydrogen sulfide. To extend the analogy, viruses may be the mechanics who tinker with the efficiency of these engines by shuttling metabolic genes between bacterial host cells.” https://lnkd.in/dTnw2ET View in LinkedIn

SHUFFLING GENES. “Viruses can alter the course of bacterial evolution by introducing new genes into the cells they infect. Bacterial DNA can be taken up by virus particles and shuttled to the next host bacterial cell, where it can be used to the new cell's advantage.” https://lnkd.in/dTnw2ET View in LinkedIn