Abstract
Recent research has revealed a remarkable diversity of viruses in archaeal-rich environments where spindles, spheres, filaments and rods are common, together with other exceptional morphotypes never recorded previously. Moreover, their double-stranded DNA genomes carry very few genes exhibiting homology to those of bacterial and eukaryal viruses. Studies on viral life cycles are still at a preliminary stage but important insights are being gained especially from microarray analyses of viral transcripts for a few model virus-host systems. Recently, evidence has been presented for some exceptional archaealnspecific mechanisms for extra-cellular morphological development of virions and for their cellular extrusion. Here we summarise some of the recent developments in this rapidly developing and exciting research area.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Journal | Science China Life Sciences |
| Volume | 55 |
| Issue number | 5 |
| Pages (from-to) | 422-433 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| ISSN | 1674-7305 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - May 2012 |