ERC Starting Grant · 2021
Giant viruses appear to be ubiquitous in soil and aquatic environments, infecting a wide range of protist hosts. As lytic viruses, they are important regulators in nutrient and energy cycles and key influencers of microbial community composition. The recent discovery of giant viruses challenged previous assumptions and blurred the sharp division between viruses and cellular life. Besides large particle sizes, giant viruses possess complex "chimeric" genomes, including genes that were likely acquired from their hosts and bacteria that parasitise the same hosts. Unique is the presence of prokaryotic-like mobile genetic elements (MGEs) that are speculated to aid giant viruses in defence…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.