4 ms·
Reminds me of how the discovery of giant viruses - like truly huge viral particles - was immediately also followed by discovering "virophages" which parasitized
by XorNot 11mo ago
Reminds me of how the discovery of giant viruses - like truly huge viral particles - was immediately also followed by discovering "virophages" which parasitized them.
Which of course makes sense to some degree: if an adaptive strategy is successful enough, then parasitizing something which successfully implements it is going to be resource favorable (and likely, presumably by being a member of that species and just shedding components you don't need if you take them).
- IAmBroom 11mo agoIndeed. Well deduced. Inevitability of Genetic Parasites Open Access Jaime Iranzo, Pere Puigbò, Alexander E. Lobkovsky, Yuri I. Wolf, Eugene V. Koonin https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/8/9/2856/2236450 https://academic.oup.com/gbe/article/8/9/2856/2236450
- flobosg 11mo agoUnsurprisingly maybe, DPANN archaea can also host viruses: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-025-02149-7 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41564-025-02149-7 (Paywalled, but there’s a preprint at https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.15.638363v1 https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.15.638363v1)