iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 11/05/2026

With Eugene Koonin, we wrote a rather comprehensive review on the origin, evolution and organization of the #virosphere. We describe all 10 viral realms and the logic behind them, and so much more. Check it out! comptes-rendus.academie-sciences.fr/biologies/ar...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 24/04/2026

A new family of rolling-circle replication endonucleases widespread in archaeal viruses and plasmids. This family is unrelated to the HUH superfamily Reps, but distantly related to the bacterial Rep_trans enzymes. @narjournal.bsky.social academic.oup.com/nar/article/...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 03/03/2026

With Eugene Koonin, we propose a concept of “the selfish ribosome”, under which evolution of life is viewed as a ribosomal takeover, where the ribosome evolved to consume most of the cell’s resources, while other cellular componentry ensures the propagation of the ribosome. arxiv.org/abs/2602.23268

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 16/01/2026

If you are interested in ssDNA viruses of bacteria, archaea or eukaryotes (yes, from all walks of life!), this is the conference for you - International Symposium on ssDNA Viruses (ISS3DV)! isdv2026.com The deadline for the early bird registration is approaching...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 18/08/2025

Check out our paper in PLoS Genetics with @umbertorosani.bsky.social and Marco Gerdol on the highly dynamic pangenome of basal chordates. It is enriched in defence and immunity genes (like in prokaryotes) and follows Mendelian inheritanceis rules. @plos.org journals.plos.org/plosgenetics...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 30/03/2025

Previously characterized OLD family ATPases-nucleases participate in anti-virus defense (abortive infection, Gabija, retrons, PARIS). A new class of #archaeal OLD family enzymes is instead implicated in cell cycle control. New work from the group of Yulong Shen. www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 09/03/2025

When infected with a virus, Saccharolobus islandicus can become up to 20 µm in diameter (20x increase in diameter and 8000x increase in volume compared to noninfected cells)! www.pnas.org/doi/full/10....

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 23/12/2024

Check out the magnificent #baculovirus structure! The unique virion architecture and structural atlas of hallmark proteins place baculo-like viruses into a separate new realm. Many insights into baculo biology and evolution. Collab with the group of Fasséli Coulibaly. www.science.org/doi/10.1126/...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 21/12/2024

Very glad to see our story on the choreography of #ESCRT proteins in #archaeal cell division finally published in mBio - Junfeng Liu et al "A relay race of ESCRT-III paralogs drives cell division in a hyperthermophilic archaeon" journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 17/12/2024

An interesting paper for the EV (extracellular vesicle) fans by Patel et al. @ahnaskop.bsky.social lab: "Extracellular vesicles, including large translating vesicles called midbody remnants, are released during the cell cycle" www.molbiolcell.org/doi/10.1091/...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 13/12/2024

Who would have thought that #dolphins (short-finned pilot whale, killer whale, false killer whale and pantropical spotted dolphin) host #anelloviruses with the most complex, extravagantly large capsid proteins? Collab. with the Varsani (@viralnomad.bsky.social) team journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 12/12/2024

Before this hysteria spreads any further, a graphical explanation of what ICTV does and doesn't do. None of the virus names have been changed or will ever be changed by ICTV (it's outside the remit). Only species names have changed. This has been explained so many times... doi.org/10.1007/s007...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 23/06/2024

Cryo-ET suggests that the small EVs are formed by budding from the cell membrane and are trapped under the cell wall prior to liberation through local disruptions in the cell wall, revealing parallels with EV biogenesis in monoderm bacteria.

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 23/06/2024

We characterize EVs produced by the dominant human gut methanogen, Methanobrevibacter smithii, which, unlike most archaea, contains a peptidoglycan cell wall. M. smithii are variable in diameter (~20-100 nm), with the majority being of ~30 nm.

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 23/06/2024

Extracellular vesicles (#EVs) of human gut methanogenic #archaea! Two preprints posted on bioRxiv today - one by us, together with @sgribaldo.bsky.social lab (doi.org/10.1101/2024...), and the other by @chmoei.bsky.social lab (doi.org/10.1101/2024...).

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 25/01/2024

The new virus group, provisionally named "Thalassapleoviridae", is distantly related to hyperhalophilic archaeal viruses of the family Pleolipoviridae. They share the (thus far) archaea-specific membrane fusion protein, but come from deep-sea hydrothermal vents 🔥

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 25/01/2024

Have a look at our paper on a new group of pleomorphic viruses infecting marine hyperthermophilic #archaea of the class Archaeoglobi. The virus coexists in a stable relationship with its host. Congrats to Diana Baquero and Eduardo Bignon. @ISMEJ doi.org/10.1093/isme...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 17/01/2024

The other group of RNA viruses in the hot springs is distantly related to partitiviruses. Presence of the RBS motifs and the fact that the analyzed hot springs are overwhelmingly dominated by bacteria, suggest that these viruses infect bacteria rather than eukaryotes.

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 17/01/2024

Relatives of the 'hot' viruses are also found in marine waters. This group could represent a separate phylum, which we propose to name ‘Artimaviricota’ after the potential link to viral RTs (arti) and ‘artima’ which means ‘close’ in Lithuanian, or even a third kingdom within the realm Riboviria.

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 17/01/2024

Viruses from one of the groups encode an RdRP which is structurally more closely similar to retroviral reverse-transcriptases (RTs) than to RdRPs of other known RNA viruses. The ‘hot’ RdRPs and RTs share a specific structural feature in the palm domain.

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 17/01/2024

Glad to present our new paper on RNA viruses in acidic hot springs. @NatureMicrobiol Together with S. Urayama, A. Fukudome, E. Koonin, T. Nunoura et al, we were hoping to find archaeal RNA viruses, instead we discovered a bunch of highly unusual bacterial viruses: www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 15/12/2023

"Gene duplication as a major force driving the genome expansion in some giant viruses"-Machado et al describe a new giant virus, Cedratvirus pambiensis, and show that its 623,564 kb genome has evolved through gene duplication, a common theme among giant viruses. #giantViruses doi.org/10.1128/jvi....

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 19/11/2023

Does not get old! doi.org/10.1016/S016...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 01/11/2023

ATV has always been in a separate family from SSV1: www.microbiologyresearch.org/content/jour...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 13/10/2023

Check out our paper on mechanical tomography of an #archaeal lemon-shaped virus which reveals membrane-like fluidity of the capsid and liquid nucleoprotein cargo. Great collaboration with Miguel Cantero, Virginija Cvirkaite-Krupovic & Pedro de Pablo @PNAS www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...

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Mart Krupovic @mkrupovic.bsky.social · 25/09/2023

A compendium of viruses from methanogenic #archaea reveals their diversity and adaptations to the gut environment - a fruitful collaboration with colleagues from Institut Pasteur, Sofia Medvedeva, Simonetta Gribaldo and Guillaume Borrel. www.nature.com/articles/s41...

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