ArticleNature communications2020
A distinct lineage of Caudovirales that encodes a deeply branching multi-subunit RNA polymerase.
Article in Nature communications, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reassessing viral origins and evolutionary placement in the tree of life.Antonie van Leeuwenhoek · 2026Review
- New groups of highly divergent proteins in families as old as cellular life with important biological functions in the ocean.Environmental microbiome · 2025Article
- Quantitative insights into the efficacy of genome-resolved surveys of microbial communities through ribosomal protein phylogeography and EcoPhylo.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Virologs, viral mimicry, and virocell metabolism: the expanding scale of cellular functions encoded in the complex genomes of giant viruses.FEMS microbiology reviews · 2023Article
- Viruses interact with hosts that span distantly related microbial domains in dense hydrothermal mats.Nature microbiology · 2023Article
- Mirusviruses link herpesviruses to giant viruses.Nature · 2023Article
- Viral Complexity.Biomolecules · 2022Review
- Evolving Perspective on the Origin and Diversification of Cellular Life and the Virosphere.Genome biology and evolution · 2022Review
- Viral origin of eukaryotic type IIA DNA topoisomerases.Virus evolution · 2022Article
- Six-State Amino Acid Recoding is not an Effective Strategy to Offset Compositional Heterogeneity and Saturation in Phylogenetic Analyses.Systematic biology · 2021Article
- ViralRecall-A Flexible Command-Line Tool for the Detection of Giant Virus Signatures in 'Omic Data.Viruses · 2021Article
- Multisubunit RNA Polymerases of Jumbo Bacteriophages.Viruses · 2020Review
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2 authors.
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Abstract
Bacteriophages play critical roles in the biosphere, but their vast genomic diversity has obscured their evolutionary origins, and phylogenetic analyses have traditionally been hindered by their lack of universal phylogenetic marker genes. In this study we mine metagenomic data and identify a clade of Caudovirales that encodes the β and β' subunits of multi-subunit RNA polymerase (RNAP), a high-resolution phylogenetic marker which enables detailed evolutionary analyses. Our RNAP phylogeny revealed that the Caudovirales RNAP forms a clade distinct from cellular homologs, suggesting an ancient acquisition of this enzyme. Within these multimeric RNAP-encoding Caudovirales (mReC), we find that the similarity of major capsid proteins and terminase large subunits further suggests they form a distinct clade with common evolutionary origin. Our study characterizes a clade of RNAP-encoding Caudovirales and suggests the ancient origin of this enzyme in this group, underscoring the important role of viruses in the early evolution of life on Earth.
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