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Huge bacteriophages: bridging the gap?
Author(s) -
Brüssow Harald
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
environmental microbiology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.954
H-Index - 188
eISSN - 1462-2920
pISSN - 1462-2912
DOI - 10.1111/1462-2920.15034
Subject(s) - biology , bridging (networking) , genome , convergent evolution , bacteriophage , bacterial virus , computational biology , bacterial cell structure , nucleus , bridge (graph theory) , bacterial genome size , microbiology and biotechnology , evolutionary biology , genetics , bacteria , phylogenetics , gene , escherichia coli , computer network , anatomy , computer science
Summary Huge bacteriophages display genome sizes that bridge the gap between viral and bacterial genomes. Large Pseudomonas phages elaborate a nucleus‐like structure in the infected bacterial cell and a tubulin‐like phage protein forms a kind of spindle apparatus. While this probably represents cases of convergent evolution, these observations revive the discussion on the origin of eukaryotic cells.