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Full-Text Articles in Virology

A Bioinformatic And Biochemical Analysis Of Cruciviruses, George William Kasun Oct 2021

A Bioinformatic And Biochemical Analysis Of Cruciviruses, George William Kasun

Dissertations and Theses

Cruciviruses are novel ssDNA viruses discovered through metagenomics and direct environmental DNA amplification and cloning. The genomes of cruciviruses suggest that gene transfer between RNA and DNA viruses occurred due to the presence of putative protein-encoding genes that are homologous to both ssRNA and ssDNA viruses. In order to gain a better understanding of this group of viruses both bioinformatic analyses and in vitro biochemical experiments were employed. The results of the bioinformatic analyses show that cruciviruses are a highly diverse group of ssDNA viruses. Their placement within established ssDNA phylogenies is difficult due to heterogeneity in their putative replication-associated …


Unveiling Crucivirus Diversity By Mining Metagenomic Data, Ignacio De La Higuera, George Kasun, Ellis L. Torrance, Alyssa A. Pratt, Amberlee Maluenda, Jonathan Colombet, Maxime Bisseux, Viviane Ravet, Anisha Dayaram, Daisy Stainton, Simona Kraberger, Peyman Zawar-Reza, Sharyn Goldstien, James V. Briskie, Robyn White, Helen Taylor, Christopher Gomez, David G. Ainley, Jon S. Harding, Rafaela S. Fontenele, Joshua Schreck, Simone Ribeiro, Stephen A. Oswald, Jennifer M. Arnold, François Enault, Arvind Varsani, Kenneth M. Stedman Jan 2020

Unveiling Crucivirus Diversity By Mining Metagenomic Data, Ignacio De La Higuera, George Kasun, Ellis L. Torrance, Alyssa A. Pratt, Amberlee Maluenda, Jonathan Colombet, Maxime Bisseux, Viviane Ravet, Anisha Dayaram, Daisy Stainton, Simona Kraberger, Peyman Zawar-Reza, Sharyn Goldstien, James V. Briskie, Robyn White, Helen Taylor, Christopher Gomez, David G. Ainley, Jon S. Harding, Rafaela S. Fontenele, Joshua Schreck, Simone Ribeiro, Stephen A. Oswald, Jennifer M. Arnold, François Enault, Arvind Varsani, Kenneth M. Stedman

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The discovery of cruciviruses revealed the most explicit example of a common protein homologue between DNA and RNA viruses to date. Cruciviruses are a novel group of circular Rep-encoding single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) (CRESSDNA) viruses that encode capsid proteins that are most closely related to those encoded by RNA viruses in the family Tombusviridae. The apparent chimeric nature of the two core proteins encoded by crucivirus genomes suggests horizontal gene transfer of capsid genes between DNA and RNA viruses. Here, we identified and characterized 451 new crucivirus genomes and 10 capsid-encoding circular genetic elements through de novo assembly and mining of …