Are Viruses Taxonomic Units? A Protein Domain and Loop-Centric Phylogenomic Assessment.

ABSTRACT: Virus taxonomy uses a Linnaean-like subsumption hierarchy to classify viruses into taxonomic units at species and higher rank levels. Virus species are considered monophyletic groups of mobile genetic elements (MGEs) often delimited by the phylogenetic analysis of aligned genomic or metagenomic sequences. Taxonomic units are assumed to be independent organizational, functional and evolutionary units that follow a 'natural history' rationale. Here, I use phylogenomic and other arguments to show that viruses are not self-standing genetically-driven systems acting as evolutionary units. Instead, they are crucial components of holobionts, which are units of biological organization that dynamically integrate the genetics, epigenetic, physiological and functional properties of their co-evolving

SUBMITTER: Caetano-Anolles G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11281659 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature