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I know "no recognizable genes" is in the title, but it's misleading. They're recognizable as genes, but never seen before: > When the team sequenced its genome
by mirimir 7y ago
I know "no recognizable genes" is in the title, but it's misleading. They're recognizable as genes, but never seen before:
> When the team sequenced its genome, none of its genes matched any scientists had come across before, the group reports on the bioRxiv preprint server.
- HarryHirsch 7y agoThese viruses seem to be as ancient as cellular life, and may preserve genes that did not become incorporated into the last common ancestor of living beings. That, or new protein families evolve even today.
- mirimir 7y agoI don't get that from TFA. > Some of Yaravirus’s genes look like those in a giant virus, but it’s still unclear how the two are related, Abrahão says. He and his colleagues are still investigating other aspects of the novel virus’s lifestyle. I don't know enough about this stuff to comment coherently. Last I knew, it wasn't clear whether viruses were remnants of prebiotic stuff, or derived from cellular organisms, or some of each.
- keanzu 7y agoI was mislead by the title. "unknown genes" would have clued me in but I interpreted "no recognizable genes" completely differently.
- mirimir 7y agoRight. I was expecting something like prions.
- XFrequentist 7y agoAs was I, terrible title.
- mirimir 7y agoThe people who discovered prions thought that they were discovering a new virus. Except that it didn't contain DNA or RNA.
- wcoenen 7y agoIn the paper they wrote "Only six genes had distant homologs in public databases". So the title is even more misleading than that. https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.28.923185v1.full https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.28.923185v1....