Open AccessOrigins and Evolution of the Global RNA Virome
Author(s) -
Yuri I. Wolf,
Darius Kazlauskas,
Jaime Iranzo,
Adriana Lucía-Sanz,
Jens H. Kuhn,
Mart Krupovìč,
Valerian V. Dolja,
Eugene V. Koonin
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
mbio
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
eISSN - 2161-2129
pISSN - 2150-7511
DOI - 10.1128/mbio.02329-18
Subject(s) - human virome , rna , biology , rna silencing , rna polymerase , rna virus , viral evolution , genetics , genome , rna dependent rna polymerase , gene , computational biology , virology , rna interference
The majority of the diverse viruses infecting eukaryotes have RNA genomes, including numerous human, animal, and plant pathogens. Recent advances of metagenomics have led to the discovery of many new groups of RNA viruses in a wide range of hosts. These findings enable a far more complete reconstruction of the evolution of RNA viruses than was attainable previously. This reconstruction reveals the relationships between different Baltimore classes of viruses and indicates extensive transfer of viruses between distantly related hosts, such as plants and animals. These results call for a major revision of the existing taxonomy of RNA viruses.