The “Giant Virus Finder” discovers an abundance of giant viruses in the Antarctic dry valleys

@article{Kerepesi2017TheV,
  title={The “Giant Virus Finder” discovers an abundance of giant viruses in the Antarctic dry valleys},
  author={Csaba Kerepesi and Vince Korn{\'e}l Grolmusz},
  journal={Archives of Virology},
  year={2017},
  volume={162},
  pages={1671-1676}
}
Mimivirus was identified in 2003 from a biofilm of an industrial water-cooling tower in England. Later, numerous new giant viruses were found in oceans and freshwater habitats, some of them having 2,500 genes. We have demonstrated their likely presence in four soil samples taken from the Kutch Desert (Gujarat, India). Here we describe a bioinformatics work-flow, called the “Giant Virus Finder” that is capable of discovering the likely presence of the genomes of giant viruses in metagenomic… 
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Giant viruses of the Kutch Desert
TLDR
DNA sequences of recently discovered giant viruses in the soil samples from the Kutch Desert are identified and phylogenetically analyzed phylogenetically for prokaryotes, especially for bacteria.
Ubiquitous giants: a plethora of giant viruses found in Brazil and Antarctica
TLDR
The isolation of 68 giant viruses of amoeba obtained from environmental samples from Brazil and Antarctica are described, thus being the first mimiviruses isolated in this extreme environment to date.
Advantages and Limits of Metagenomic Assembly and Binning of a Giant Virus
TLDR
The results indicate that genome-resolved metagenomics is a valid approach for the recovery of near-complete giant virus genomes given that sufficient clonal particles are present, however, the data also underline that the vast majority of giant viruses remain currently undetected, even in an era of terabase-scale meetagenomics.
ViralRecall—A Flexible Command-Line Tool for the Detection of Giant Virus Signatures in ‘Omic Data
TLDR
ViralRecall is demonstrated to be a bioinformatic tool that can effectively identify NCLDV sequences with high sensitivity and specificity and can be useful both for removing contaminating sequences in metagenome-assembled viral genomes as well as the identification of eukaryotic genomic loci that derived from NCLV.
Advantages and limits of metagenomic assembly and binning of a giant virus
TLDR
The results indicate that genome-resolved metagenomics is a valid approach for the recovery of near-complete giant virus genomes given that sufficient clonal particles are present, and underline that a vast majority of giant viruses remain currently undetected, even in an era of terabase-scale metagenetics.
Giant mimiviruses escape many canonical criteria of the virus definition.
TLDR
The widening gap between mimiviruses and other viruses is summarized to highlight that there is a quantum leap between these infectious agents, the complexity of which is similar to that of intracellular microorganisms, and classical viruses.
Virophages of Giant Viruses: An Update at Eleven
TLDR
Their parasitic lifestyle as bona fide viruses of the giant virus factories, genetic parasites of their genomes, and then their role as a key component or target for some host defense mechanisms during the tripartite virophage–giant virus–host cell interaction are discussed.
Boiling Acid Mimics Intracellular Giant Virus Genome Release
TLDR
This work generated four metastable infection intermediates in Samba virus and generated proteins that are released from Samba and newly discovered Tupanvirus through differential mass spectrometry, and revealed the molecular forces that trigger infection are conserved amongst disparate giant viruses.
MG-Digger: An Automated Pipeline to Search for Giant Virus-Related Sequences in Metagenomes
TLDR
The present work shows that massive, automated and recurrent analyses of metagenomes are effective in improving knowledge about the presence and prevalence of giant viruses in the environment and the human body.
The Complex Nature of Tupanviruses.
TLDR
This chapter tells the history behind the discovery of one of the most complex viruses isolated to date, highlighting the unique features exhibited by tupanviruses, and discusses how these giant viruses have contributed to redefining limits for the virosphere.
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References

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TLDR
DNA sequences of recently discovered giant viruses in the soil samples from the Kutch Desert are identified and phylogenetically analyzed phylogenetically for prokaryotes, especially for bacteria.
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TLDR
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TLDR
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TLDR
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TLDR
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TLDR
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TLDR
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TLDR
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TLDR
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TLDR
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