The Expanding Diversity of Viruses from Extreme Environments

Viruses are nonliving biological entities whose host range encompasses all known forms of life. They are deceptively simple in description (a protein shell surrounding genetic material with an occasional lipid envelope) and yet can infect all known forms of life. Recently, due to technological advan...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:International journal of molecular sciences 2024-03, Vol.25 (6), p.3137
Main Authors: Manuel, Robert D, Snyder, Jamie C
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
CRISPR
Extreme Environments
Genomes
National parks
Proteins
Review
Virology
Viruses
Viruses - genetics
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Summary:Viruses are nonliving biological entities whose host range encompasses all known forms of life. They are deceptively simple in description (a protein shell surrounding genetic material with an occasional lipid envelope) and yet can infect all known forms of life. Recently, due to technological advancements, viruses from more extreme environments can be studied through both culture-dependent and independent means. Viruses with thermophilic, halophilic, psychrophilic, and barophilic properties are highlighted in this paper with an emphasis on the properties that allow them to exist in said environments. Unfortunately, much of this field is extremely novel and thus, not much is yet known about these viruses or the microbes they infect when compared to non-extremophilic host-virus systems. With this review, we hope to shed some light on these relatively new studies and highlight their intrinsic value.
ISSN:1422-0067
1661-6596
1422-0067
DOI:10.3390/ijms25063137