Giant viruses infect diverse eukaryotes, causing livestock diseases and algal population demise. To better understand how their genomes evolved, the team of Dr. Chuan Ku at Institute of Plant and Microbial Biology used large-scale analyses to dissect giant virus gene repertoires and showed that host associations, rather than vertical descent from ancient ancestors, have substantially shaped the patterns of giant virus genome variation and gigantism. This work has been published in the journal Virus Evolution.

Article Link: https://doi.org/10.1093/ve/veab081