Thermal Biology Institute and Departments of.
Plant Sciences and.
Annu Rev Virol. 2014 Nov;1(1):399-426. doi: 10.1146/annurev-virology-031413-085357. Epub 2014 Jul 2.
The Archaea-and their viruses-remain the most enigmatic of life's three domains. Once thought to inhabit only extreme environments, archaea are now known to inhabit diverse environments. Even though the first archaeal virus was described over 40 years ago, only 117 archaeal viruses have been discovered to date. Despite this small number, these viruses have painted a portrait of enormous morphological and genetic diversity. For example, research centered around the various steps of the archaeal virus life cycle has led to the discovery of unique mechanisms employed by archaeal viruses during replication, maturation, and virion release. In many instances, archaeal virus proteins display very low levels of sequence homology to other proteins listed in the public database, and therefore, structural characterization of these proteins has played an integral role in functional assignment. These structural studies have not only provided insights into structure-function relationships but have also identified links between viruses across all three domains of life.
古菌及其病毒仍然是生命的三个域中最神秘的。古菌曾经被认为只栖息在极端环境中，但现在已知它们栖息在多样化的环境中。尽管第一个古菌病毒是在 40 多年前描述的，但迄今为止只发现了 117 种古菌病毒。尽管数量很少，但这些病毒已经描绘出了巨大的形态和遗传多样性的图景。例如，以古菌病毒生命周期的各个步骤为中心的研究导致了在复制、成熟和病毒粒子释放过程中古菌病毒所采用的独特机制的发现。在许多情况下，古菌病毒蛋白与公共数据库中列出的其他蛋白的序列同源性非常低，因此，这些蛋白的结构特征在功能分配中起着不可或缺的作用。这些结构研究不仅提供了对结构-功能关系的深入了解，而且还确定了生命的三个域中的病毒之间的联系。
