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BIOINFORMATICS POWER. "Metagenomic sequences are a treasure trove of novel genes and genomes. The rapidly growing metagenomic databases provide increasing opportunities for computational discovery of new groups of organisms. Identification of new viruses is particularly straightforward given the comparatively small size of viral genomes, although fast evolution of viruses complicates the analysis of novel sequences." https://lnkd.in/erZCmAF View in LinkedIn

THE MISSING LINK. "The line between viruses and parasitic elements of the genome is thin and delicate, and probably often crossed. Parasitic elements that acquire the means to escape the host cell become viruses and, conversely, viruses can lose this ability and return to a more limited lifestyle as transposable elements (TEs)." https://lnkd.in/eGu7jnP View in LinkedIn

"CATABOLIC PLASMIDS are large (80→1100 kb) linear or circular, accessory deoxyribonucleic acid elements present in the cytoplasm of bacteria from virtually every ecological niche on Earth. Catabolic plasmids are giant bacterial plasmids that encode vast arrays of catabolic gene clusters. They play a central and indispensible role in the Earth's carbon cycle." https://lnkd.in/eKGaQU7 View in LinkedIn

MAVERICKS. "Polintons, a remarkable group of selfish elements. The apparent dual lifestyle of the Polintons seems to have entailed outstanding evolutionary resilience and versatility, making them a hotbed of evolution of eukaryotic selfish elements that spawned diverse groups of viruses in a broad range of sizes, along with related plasmids." https://lnkd.in/eqriJpu View in LinkedIn

ANCIENT SELFISH LINEAGE. "We hypothesize that Polintons were the first group of eukaryotic double-stranded DNA viruses to evolve from bacteriophages and that they gave rise to most large DNA viruses of eukaryotes and various other selfish genetic elements." https://lnkd.in/eS9xu2G View in LinkedIn

SOME ARE NOT AUTONOMOUS. "Unlike retrotransposons, which synthesize their DNA copies by using their own RNA-dependent DNA polymerase (reverse transcriptase), DNA transposons cannot synthesize DNA. Instead, they multiply by using the host replication machinery." https://lnkd.in/evfenaM View in LinkedIn

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SOME ARE AUTONOMOUS. "Analogously to known transposable elements, Polintons exist as autonomous and nonautonomous elements. Our data suggest that Polintons have evolved from a linear plasmid that acquired a retroviral integrase at least 1 billion years ago." Or, put another way: some are self-governed and self-reproducing mobile and ancient parasitic genes. https://lnkd.in/evfenaM View in LinkedIn

"POLINTONS: a hotbed of eukaryotic virus, transposon and plasmid evolution. 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/eqriJpu View in LinkedIn