ArticlemSystems2021
Diverse Viruses Carrying Genes for Microbial Extremotolerance in the Atacama Desert Hyperarid Soil.
Article in mSystems, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 1 citations in OpenAlex.
- A diverse gut virome in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster.Animal microbiome · 2026Article
- Metagenomics reveals potential interactions between Patescibacteriota and their phages in groundwater ecosystems.mSystems · 2026Article
- Viral Dark Matter: Illuminating Protein Function, Ecology, and Biotechnological Promises.Biochemistry · 2025Review
- Prolonged grazing reduces the diversity and weakens virus-host links of metagenome-assembled viral community in acidic karst soil.BMC biology · 2025Article
- Recovery of 1,773 microbial genomes and 2,060 viral genomes from the Mars-analog Qaidam Basin desert.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Global biogeography of airborne viruses in public transit systems and their host interactions.Microbiome · 2025Article
- Viral Dark Matter: Illuminating Protein Function, Ecology, and Biotechnological Promises.ArXiv · 2025Article
- Diversity of DNA viruses in the atmosphere of sub-Antarctic South Georgia.Frontiers in microbiology · 2025Article
- Microbial Biodiversity in Sediment from the Amuyo Ponds: Three Andean Hydrothermal Lagoons in Northern Chile.Microorganisms · 2024Article
- Temporal dynamics of microbial transcription in wetted hyperarid desert soils.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2024Article
- Dryland microbiomes reveal community adaptations to desertification and climate change.The ISME journal · 2024Review
- Virus diversity and activity is driven by snowmelt and host dynamics in a high-altitude watershed soil ecosystem.Microbiome · 2023Article
- Marine viruses disperse bidirectionally along the natural water cycle.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Viruses interact with hosts that span distantly related microbial domains in dense hydrothermal mats.Nature microbiology · 2023Article
- Soil viral diversity, ecology and climate change.Nature reviews. Microbiology · 2023Review
- Dynamic Development of Viral and Bacterial Diversity during Grass Silage Preservation.Viruses · 2023Article
- Viral and Bacterial Communities Collaborate through Complementary Assembly Processes in Soil to Survive Organochlorine Contamination.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2023Article
- Viral Community Structure and Potential Functions in the Dried-Out Aral Sea Basin Change along a Desiccation Gradient.mSystems · 2023Article
- Prokaryotic taxonomy and functional diversity assessment of different sequencing platform in a hyper-arid Gobi soil in Xinjiang Turpan Basin, China.Frontiers in microbiology · 2023Article
- Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
5 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Viruses play an essential role in shaping microbial community structures and serve as reservoirs for genetic diversity in many ecosystems. In hyperarid desert environments, where life itself becomes scarce and loses diversity, the interactions between viruses and host populations have remained elusive. Here, we resolved host-virus interactions in the soil metagenomes of the Atacama Desert hyperarid core, one of the harshest terrestrial environments on Earth. We show evidence of diverse viruses infecting a wide range of hosts found in sites up to 205 km apart. Viral genomes carried putative extremotolerance features (i.e., spore formation proteins) and auxiliary metabolic genes, indicating that viruses could mediate the spread of microbial resilience against environmental stress across the desert. We propose a mutualistic model of host-virus interactions in the hyperarid core where viruses seek protection in microbial cells as lysogens or pseudolysogens, while viral extremotolerance genes aid survival of their hosts. Our results suggest that the host-virus interactions in the Atacama Desert soils are dynamic and complex, shaping uniquely adapted microbiomes in this highly selective and hostile environment.
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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.