ReviewNature reviews. Microbiology2022
Giant virus biology and diversity in the era of genome-resolved metagenomics.
Review in Nature reviews. Microbiology, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 78 papers.
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Who cites it
78 citing papers in PubMed, 130 citations in OpenAlex.
- Why did some viruses evolve to be giants while others did not?Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Molecular mechanism of calcium inhibition in viral channelrhodopsins.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Genomic catalogue of giant viruses reveals expanded diversity and functional potential.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Diversity and taxonomy of giant algal viruses: chloroviruses lead the way.Journal of virology · 2026Review
- Giant viruses of the polar regions: diversity, endemism, adaptation and ecological structuring.FEMS microbiology ecology · 2026Review
- Vicennial metagenomic time series unveils evolutionary dynamics of giant viruses in a freshwater ecosystem.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Latent endogenous giant viruses drive active infection and inheritance in a multicellular algal host.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Rise of the viral giants: common themes underlying genome gigantism in eukaryotic viruses and bacteriophages.Current opinion in microbiology · 2026Review
- Unveiling the biodiversity of large DNA viruses in intertidal mudflats via metagenomics.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Unveiling the viral frontier in a warming world: temperature as a key ecological driver of viral diversity in subantarctic Chilean Patagonia fjords.Environmental microbiome · 2026Article
- Revisiting giant virus-host dynamics in brown algae: old stories and new perspectives.The EMBO journal · 2026Review
- A giant virus forms a specialized subcellular environment within its amoeba host for efficient translation.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Strain-level diversity of giant viruses infecting chlorarachniophyte algae in the subtropical North Pacific.The ISME journal · 2026Article
- Complex viral interactions revealed for the harmful bloom-forming dinoflagellateISME communications · 2026Article
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- A single-cell perspective on host-virus dynamics in the ocean.Trends in microbiology · 2025Review
- Single-cell genomics reveals complex microbial and viral associations in ciliates and testate amoebae.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Deep-sea viral diversity and their role in host metabolism of complex organic matter.Nature communications · 2025Article
- The association of the rumen virome with methane emissions in dairy cattle.Communications biology · 2025Article
18 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 2 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
The discovery of giant viruses, with capsids as large as some bacteria, megabase-range genomes and a variety of traits typically found only in cellular organisms, was one of the most remarkable breakthroughs in biology. Until recently, most of our knowledge of giant viruses came from ~100 species-level isolates for which genome sequences were available. However, these isolates were primarily derived from laboratory-based co-cultivation with few cultured protists and algae and, thus, did not reflect the true diversity of giant viruses. Although virus co-cultures enabled valuable insights into giant virus biology, many questions regarding their origin, evolution and ecological importance remain unanswered. With advances in sequencing technologies and bioinformatics, our understanding of giant viruses has drastically expanded. In this Review, we summarize our understanding of giant virus diversity and biology based on viral isolates as laboratory cultivation has enabled extensive insights into viral morphology and infection strategies. We then explore how cultivation-independent approaches have heightened our understanding of the coding potential and diversity of the Nucleocytoviricota. We discuss how metagenomics has revolutionized our perspective of giant viruses by revealing their distribution across our planet's biomes, where they impact the biology and ecology of a wide range of eukaryotic hosts and ultimately affect global nutrient cycles.
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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.