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Viruses were defined as one of the two principal types of organisms
in the biosphere, namely, as capsid-encoding organisms in
contrast to ribosome-encoding organisms, i.e., all cellular life
forms. Structurally similar, apparently homologous capsids are
present in a huge variety of icosahedral viruses that infect bacteria,
archaea, and eukaryotes. These...
Important progress in understanding replication, interactions with host plants, and evolution of closteroviruses enabled engineering of several vectors for gene expression and virus-induced gene silencing. Due to the broad host range of closteroviruses, these vectors expanded vector applicability to include important woody plants such as citrus and grapevine. Furthermore, large...
Viruses and/or virus-like selfish elements are associated with all cellular life forms and are the most abundant biological entities on Earth, with the number of virus particles in many environments exceeding the number of cells by one to two orders of magnitude. The genetic diversity of viruses is commensurately enormous...