Megataxonomy and global ecology of the virosphere.

ABSTRACT: Nearly all organisms are hosts to multiple viruses that collectively appear to be the most abundant biological entities in the biosphere. With recent advances in metagenomics and metatranscriptomics, the known diversity of viruses substantially expanded. Comparative analysis of these viruses using advanced computational methods culminated in the reconstruction of the evolution of major groups of viruses and enabled the construction of a virus megataxonomy, which has been formally adopted by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses. This comprehensive taxonomy consists of six virus realms, which are aspired to be monophyletic and assembled based on the conservation of hallmark proteins involved in capsid structure formation or genome replication. The viruses in different major tax

SUBMITTER: Koonin EV 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10848233 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature