Viruses are ubiquitous mobile genetic elements that are obligate symbionts of cellular life forms and replicate exclusively within host cells. The ...

Viruses dominate the deep-ocean biosphere (>200-m depth) yet remain profoundly understudied. As the most abundant biological entities on Earth, they govern the geochemistry, evolution, and ecology ...

Viruses with large DNA genomes often carry auxiliary metabolic genes that reprogram host physiology, yet their contributions to host redox and memb...

(1) From July 2021 and May 2025 441 marine, freshwater, and soil samples were collected between longitudes 12.79° W to 23.68° E and latitudes 67.88° N to 83.90° N. (2) All samples were screened for v....

Virophages are double-stranded DNA viruses that hyperparasitize giant viruses infecting unicellular eukaryotes. Parasitization by virophages often reduces the replication of giant viruses, thereby mod...

When do viruses become a threat? 🧬 Viruses are all around us, and most go unnoticed. With new viral generations emerging daily, just a few mutations under the right conditions can change everything. ...

Abstract. Taxonomic classification underlies all biological science and is the basis for comparative analysis of biological organisms and therefore our und

Giant DNA viruses are ubiquitous among unicellular eukaryotes and occur in marine, freshwater, and terrestrial environments. Despite intense metagenomic data mining, their strain-level diversity remai...

Nature Communications - Melbournevirus encodes a conserved shorter H2B-H2A doublet variant. Here the authors report a cryo-EM structure of a nucleosome-like particle reconstituted with viral H4-H3...

Heat shock proteins 70 (HSP70) are highly conserved molecular chaperones found across all domains of life, where they play essential roles in cellular stress responses. While HSP70 homologs have been ...

Giant viruses of protists are a diverse and likely ubiquitous group of organisms. Here, we describe Jyvaskylavirus, the first giant virus isolated from Finland. This clade B marseillevirus was found i...

Circovirids have a circular single-stranded DNA genome packed into a small icosahedral capsid. They are classified within two genera, Circovirus and Cyclovirus, in the family Circoviridae (phylum Cres...

SUMMARYPolintons are 15–20 kb-long self-synthesizing transposons that are widespread in eukaryotic, and in particular protist, genomes. Apart from a transposase and a protein-primed DNA polymerase, po...

A community challenge to evaluate and compare viral genome taxonomy classifiers

This is the first report on a virus infecting the amoeboflagellate Naegleria, including the lethal human pathogen N. fowleri. The new virus isolate, Catovirus naegleriensis (Naegleriavirus, NiV),...

Abstract. Tripartite biotic interactions are inherently complex, and the strong interdependence of species and often one-sided exploitation can make these