Tupanvirus-infected amoebas are induced to aggregate with uninfected cells promoting viral dissemination.

ABSTRACT: The discovery of giant viruses in the last years has fascinated the scientific community due to virus particles size and genome complexity. Among such fantastic discoveries, we have recently described tupanviruses, which particles present a long tail, and has a genome that contains the most complete set of translation-related genes ever reported in the known virosphere. Here we describe a new kind of virus-host interaction involving tupanvirus. We observed that tupanvirus-infected amoebas were induced to aggregate with uninfected cells, promoting viral dissemination and forming giant host cell bunches. Even after mechanical breakdown of bunches, amoebas reaggregated within a few minutes. This remarkable interaction between infected and uninfected cells seems to be promoted by the expressio

SUBMITTER: Oliveira G 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6336878 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature