Edward Chen in Nature:
Scientists report that a type of giant virus multiplies furiously by hijacking its host’s protein-making machinery1 — long-sought experimental evidence that viruses can co-opt a system typically associated with cellular life.
The researchers found that the virus makes a complex of three proteins that takes over its host’s protein-production system, which then churns out viral proteins instead of the host’s own.
Virologists had already suspected that viruses could perform such a feat, says Frederik Schulz, a computational biologist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who was not involved with the work. But the new findings, published in Cell on 17 February, are an important confirmation. Compared with other viruses, he says, this one “has a more powerful toolbox to really replace what the host is doing”.
More here.
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