Classify viruses — the gain is worth the pain

Jens Kuhn (1) , Yuri I Wolf (2) , M Krupovic (3, 4) , Yong-Zhen Zhang (5, 6) , Piet Maes (7) , Valerian Dolja (8) , Eugene Koonin (2)

1 NIAID-NIH - National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases [Bethesda]
2 NCBI - National Center for Biotechnology Information
3 BMGE - Biologie Moléculaire du Gène chez les Extrêmophiles
4 Département de Microbiologie - Department of Microbiology
5 Fudan University [Shanghai]
6 Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention
7 KU Leuven - Catholic University of Leuven - Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
8 OSU - Oregon State University

Earth probably harbours a million times more virus particles than there are stars in the observable Universe. These viruses could hold solutions to many of humanity’s current problems. Phage therapy could someday be used to treat diseases caused by multidrug-resistant bacteria, for instance. Enzymes encoded by new viruses could help researchers to develop pharmaceuticals. Or viruses that kill algal cells could be used to control harmful blooms. Tapping into the benefits — and threats — requires describing and cataloguing viruses and mapping their evolutionary relationships. But, so far, just 4,958 virus species have been formally described.

Domains: Life Sciences [q-bio]; Biodiversity and Ecology

Jens Kuhn, Yuri I Wolf, M Krupovic, Yong-Zhen Zhang, Piet Maes, et al.. Classify viruses — the gain is worth the pain. Nature, 2019, 566 (7744), pp.318-320. ⟨10.1038/d41586-019-00599-8⟩. ⟨pasteur-02043332⟩