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Updated: Jul 8, 2025

Single Cell Micro-aspiration as an Alternative Strategy to Fluorescence-activated Cell Sorting for Giant Virus Mixture Separation
Published on: October 27, 2019
Gene duplication as a major force driving the genome expansion in some giant viruses
Talita B Machado1, Agnello C R Picorelli2, Bruna L de Azevedo1
1Laboratório de Vírus, Departamento de Microbiologia, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG), Belo Horizonte, Brazil.
Importance:
Giant viruses are noteworthy not only due to their enormous particles but also because of their gigantic genomes. In this context, a fundamental question has persisted: how did these genomes evolve? Here we present the discovery of cedratvirus pambiensis, featuring the largest genome ever described for a cedratvirus. Our data suggest that the larger size of the genome can be attributed to an unprecedented number of duplicated genes. Further investigation of this phenomenon in other viruses has illuminated gene duplication as a key evolutionary mechanism driving genome expansion in diverse giant viruses. Although gene duplication has been described as a recurrent event in cellular organisms, our data highlights its potential as a pivotal event in the evolution of gigantic viral genomes.
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