Abstract
Viruses that infect the third domain of life, Archaea, are a newly emerging field of interest. To date, all characterized archaeal viruses infect archaea that thrive in extreme conditions, such as halophilic, hyperthermophilic, and methanogenic environments. Viruses in general, especially those replicating in extreme environments, contain highly mosaic genomes with open reading frames (ORFs) whose sequences are often dissimilar to all other known ORFs. It has been estimated that approximately 85% of virally encoded ORFs do not match known sequences in the nucleic acid databases, and this percentage is even higher for archaeal viruses (typically 90%–100%). This statistic suggests that either virus genomes represent a larger segment of sequence space and/or that viruses encode genes of novel fold and/or function. Because the overall three-dimensional fold of a protein evolves more slowly than its sequence, efforts have been geared toward structural characterization of proteins encoded by archaeal viruses in order to gain insight into their potential functions. In this short review, we provide multiple examples where structural characterization of archaeal viral proteins has indeed provided significant functional and evolutionary insight.
Highlights
Archaeal viruses infect the third domain of life, Archaea
All identified archaeal viruses infect extremophilic hosts, including acidophiles and hyperthermophiles found in terrestrial hot springs and deep sea vents, alkaliphiles and halophiles that thrive in alkaline and hypersaline environments, and methanogens that survive in anaerobic environments [1,2]
Structural characterization of proteins from archaeal viruses has lead to several conclusions
Summary
Department of Plant Sciences and Plant Pathology, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Montana State University, Bozeman, MT 59717, USA Received: 15 December 2012; in revised form: 18 January 2013 / Accepted: 21 January 2013 /
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Disclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.