A dinoflagellate-infecting giant virus with a micron-length tail.

ABSTRACT: Viral infection is a ubiquitous source of marine plankton mortality, but relatively few viruses that infect phytoplankton have been characterized. Here we describe a virus, PelV-1, with unusual morphological and genomic features that infects a dinoflagellate, Pelagodinium sp. Both host and virus were isolated from the epipelagic zone in the North Pacific Subtropical Gyre. PelV-1 has a ~200 nm capsid size, and the virion variably exhibits two appendages, the presence and length of which may reflect different stages of virion maturity or artifacts of sample preparation. The appendages are a thinner 30 nm-wide tail-like structure that can extend to 2.3 μm - the longest virus appendage described to date- and a shorter, thicker (>40-70 nm) protrusion, which appears to emerge from a star-

SUBMITTER: Gajigan AP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12338748 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature