Protist genomes are packed with DNA viruses. Thanks to @the_fischer_lab @th4ckl @MarieSophP @R_Sommaruga and Anna Koslová for a great collaboration. Short summary thread follows: https://t.co/UBsg5NjD6W

I am happy to share our new paper on a very exciting project! 🌊🦠🌊🦠🥳 Read the thread in the quoted tweet 🔽

Do endogenous virophages protect their protist hosts from giant viruses? For the marine heterotrophic flagellate Cafeteria sp., it very much seems so. Congrats to Anna Koslová, @th4ckl and co-workers at @mpi_mr_hd on a new study published in @PNASNews ! https://t.co/9HsH0FlnsI

First major work fully made in the laboratory is out in @biorxivpreprint: https://t.co/qAkBX3VZg1. We found that DNA methylation allows recurrent endogenization of giant virus in a protist🦠 closely related to animals, large scale virus and eukaryotic host genomic mixture.🧵 1/10

A snowy few days was had at the 5th Ringberg Symposium on Giant Virus Biology last week. Lots of great talks, people and conversations. Thanks to @the_fischer_lab and @th4ckl for all their hard work and getting us there despite heavy snow, blocked lines and airport closures!

It was great to collaborate with @sanchez_baracal @klc_algae and @MartynTranter1 on a project exploring sea ice prokaryotic communities associated with algal blooms. Fascinating habitats with lots more to study.

Received shocking news from @uniinnsbruck during(!) my Antarctic expedition: Despite having secured funding, I'm barred from working at the university soon. Heartless timing, and it jeopardizes scientific career. No lab access = no sample processing or publishing. Plz RT this 🧵

The sun rising over the prokaryotic pangenome in San Juan de Alicante, Spain, October 25-28, 2023. Great meeting and many new perspectives on the most complex problem of genomics

This is what viral diversity looks like! https://t.co/FJbr5a2ujG Together with our EM wizard Ulrike Mersdorf at @mpi_mr_hd and Jeff Blanchard at @UMassAmherst, I am thrilled and proud to present our latest work on virus-like particles on soil! (1/7)

A really nice commentary by @giant_virus and @FOAylward on how endogenous DNA viruses shape eukaryotic genomes.

Excited to share the first research paper from my lab (#ENVERG) @UWaterloo on the 'Functional Profiling and Evolutionary Analysis of a Marine Microalgal Virus Pangenome'. Great collaboration with the @ACDoxey lab and awesome work by Postdoc Briallen Lobb https://t.co/Lfh42rRLaQ

Our discovery of a major group of DNA viruses abundant in the oceans, the #mirusviruses, is out! These viruses have large genomes and a complex evolution linking #herpesviruses and #giantviruses. They pose no risk to humans but are important to plankton -> https://t.co/3Sq1QLEKmo

By comparing the MCP genes from all EVEs, we can see that their diversity is huge! They also group with many viruses detected by metagenomics. The next major question is, what do they all do?

Nanopore data can resolve these virus insertions.

Hundreds of variants in a genome makes them tricky to assemble with short-read data. They usually fragment or assemble out separately. Most EVE assemblies in GenBank appear artificially fragmented.

Sometimes hundreds or thousands of different endogenous viral elements (EVEs) exist in a single genome. Recent studies have started to see them in algal genomes. But the vast majority have remained hidden. They are found in most major eukaryotic groups.

Polinton-like viruses and virophages (Maveriviricetes) are abundant in the genomes of a third of all sequenced protists.

Viruses impact cellular genomes everywhere! Bacteria & archaea have prophages, vertebrates have ERVs – and protists? Thousands of endogenous Polinton-like viruses and virophages! Great detective work by @CMBellas, @th4ckl, @R_Sommaruga and coworkers! https://t.co/WALDTTqwsf

Now @emily_fogarty11's pre-print is officially out (🎉), I'd like to tell you more about one of the most curious things we (or at least me, my ignorant self) stumbled upon in the human gut microbiome. This is about a cryptic plasmid, called pBI143. https://t.co/VT4ZuxCPra