ArticleMicrobiome2019
Diversity, evolution, and classification of virophages uncovered through global metagenomics.
Article in Microbiome, 2019. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 48 papers.
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Who cites it
48 citing papers in PubMed, 85 citations in OpenAlex.
- Something old, something new? Herpesvirus genome packaging examined in light of lessons from the tailed bacteriophages.Journal of virology · 2026Review
- Biological Trajectory of Virophage Research and the Emergence of Marine Virophages: A Scoping Review.Viruses · 2026Article
- Unveiling the cryptic diversity and distribution of elements related to virophage mavirus through deep mining of pPolB proteins.Virologica Sinica · 2026Article
- A genomic view of Earth's biomes.Nature reviews. Genetics · 2026Review
- Conserved tripartite tail proteins mediate virophage-host interactions throughJournal of virology · 2025Article
- Single-cell genomics reveals complex microbial and viral associations in ciliates and testate amoebae.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Phage quest: a beginner's guide to explore viral diversity in the prokaryotic world.Briefings in bioinformatics · 2025Review
- Lineage-specific expansions of polinton-like viruses in photosynthetic cryptophytes.Microbiome · 2025Article
- Cryptic infection of a giant virus in a unicellular green alga.Science (New York, N.Y.) · 2025Article
- Sputnik virophage disrupts the transcriptional regulation of its host giant virus.Journal of virology · 2025Article
- VITAP: a high precision tool for DNA and RNA viral classification based on meta-omic data.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Investigations into the Diversity and Distribution of tRNA and Phylogenetics of Translation Factors in Amoebozoa-InfectingViruses · 2025Article
- Viromes vs. mixed community metagenomes: choice of method dictates interpretation of viral community ecology.Microbiome · 2024Article
- Identification of mobile genetic elements with geNomad.Nature biotechnology · 2024Article
- Virophages, Satellite Viruses, Virophage Replication and Its Effects and Virophage Defence Mechanisms for Giant Virus Hosts and Giant Virus Defence Systems against Virophages.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- The role of rhizosphere phages in soil health.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2024Review
- Endogenous virophages are active and mitigate giant virus infection in the marine protistProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2024Article
- COBRA improves the completeness and contiguity of viral genomes assembled from metagenomes.Nature microbiology · 2024Article
- Ecological and evolutionary dynamics of cell-virus-virophage systems.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- Megataxonomy and global ecology of the virosphere.The ISME journal · 2024Review
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
13 authors at 3 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundVirophages are small viruses with double-stranded DNA genomes that replicate along with giant viruses and co-infect eukaryotic cells. Due to the paucity of virophage reference genomes, a collective understanding of the global virophage diversity, distribution, and evolution is lacking.
resultsHere we screened a public collection of over 14,000 metagenomes using the virophage-specific major capsid protein (MCP) as "bait." We identified 44,221 assembled virophage sequences, of which 328 represent high-quality (complete or near-complete) genomes from diverse habitats including the human gut, plant rhizosphere, and terrestrial subsurface. Comparative genomic analysis confirmed the presence of four core genes in a conserved block. We used these genes to establish a revised virophage classification including 27 clades with consistent genome length, gene content, and habitat distribution. Moreover, for eight high-quality virophage genomes, we computationally predicted putative eukaryotic virus hosts.
conclusionOverall, our approach has increased the number of known virophage genomes by 10-fold and revealed patterns of genome evolution and global virophage distribution. We anticipate that the expanded diversity presented here will provide the backbone for further virophage studies.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.