Complex Genomes of Early Nucleocytoviruses Revealed by Ancient Origins of Viral Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases.

ABSTRACT: Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs), also known as tRNA ligases, are essential enzymes in translation. Owing to their functional essentiality, these enzymes are conserved in all domains of life and used as informative markers to trace the evolutionary history of cellular organisms. Unlike cellular organisms, viruses generally lack aaRSs because of their obligate parasitic nature, but several large and giant DNA viruses in the phylum Nucleocytoviricota encode aaRSs in their genomes. The discovery of viral aaRSs led to the idea that the phylogenetic analysis of aaRSs can shed light on ancient viral evolution. However, conflicting results have been reported from previous phylogenetic studies: one posited that nucleocytoviruses recently acquired their aaRSs from their host eukaryotes, while ano

SUBMITTER: Kijima S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11304981 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature