title: I am what I eat and I eat what I am: acquisition of bacterial genes by giant viruses.
abstract: Giant viruses are nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs) that infect algae (phycodnaviruses) and amoebae (Mimivirus). We report an unexpected abundance in these giant viruses of islands of bacterial-type genes, including apparently intact prokaryotic mobile genetic elements, and hypothesize that NCLDV genomes undergo successive accretions of bacterial genes. The viruses could acquire bacterial genes within their bacteria-feeding eukaryotic hosts, and we suggest that such acquisition is driven by the intimate coupling of recombination and replication in NCLDVs.
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire de Microbiologie et Génétique Moléculaires, CNRS 118, Route de Narbonne, F-31062 Toulouse Cedex, France. jonathan.filee@ibcg.biotoul.fr
authors.forename: Jonathan
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Filée
authors.forename: Patricia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Siguier
authors.forename: Mick
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Chandler
mesh_terms: D002874:Chromosome Mapping; D019295:Computational Biology; D004267:DNA Viruses / Q000235:genetics*; D022761:Gene Transfer, Horizontal / Q000235:genetics*; D005798:Genes, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics*; D016679:Genome, Viral / Q000235:genetics*; D020071:Interspersed Repetitive Sequences / Q000235:genetics; D008957:Models, Genetic