title: Viruses of the Archaea: a unifying view.
abstract: DNA viruses of the Archaea have highly diverse and often exceptionally complex morphotypes. Many have been isolated from geothermally heated hot environments, raising intriguing questions about their origins, and contradicting the widespread notion of limited biodiversity in extreme environments. Here, we provide a unifying view on archaeal viruses, and present them as a particular assemblage that is fundamentally different in morphotype and genome from the DNA viruses of the other two domains of life, the Bacteria and Eukarya.
authors.affiliation: Molecular Biology of the Gene in Extremophiles Unit, Institut Pasteur, rue du Docteur Roux 25, F-75724 Paris Cedex 15, France.
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Prangishvili
authors.forename: Patrick
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Forterre
authors.forename: Roger A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Garrett
mesh_terms: D001105:Archaea / Q000821:virology*; D023641:Archaeal Viruses / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000648:ultrastructure; D005075:Biological Evolution; D016679:Genome, Viral