More than a century ago, the term 'virus' was introduced to describe infectious agents that
are invisible by light microscopy and capable of passing through sterilizing filters. In addition …

Free-living amoebas (FLA) are ubiquitous environmental protists that have enormously
contributed to the microbiological contamination of water sources. FLAs have displayed …

Virophages are small double stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses that can only replicate in a host
by co-infecting with another virus. Marine algae are commonly associated with virophage …

The accidental discovery of the giant virus of amoeba—Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus
(APMV; more commonly known as mimivirus)—in 2003 changed the field of virology …

During the 12 past years, five new or putative virus families encompassing several
members, namely Mimiviridae, Marseilleviridae, pandoraviruses, faustoviruses, and …

Viruses are the most prevalent infectious agents, populating almost every ecosystem on
earth. Most viruses carry only a handful of genes supporting their replication and the …

Satellite viruses encode structural proteins required for the formation of infectious particles
but depend on helper viruses for completing their replication cycles. Because of this unique …

Virophages are recently discovered double-stranded DNA virus satellites that prey on giant
viruses (nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses; NCLDVs), which are themselves parasites of …

Self-synthesizing transposons are the largest known transposable elements that encode
their own DNA polymerases (DNAP). The Polinton/Maverick family of self-synthesizing …

Highlights•Polintons, virophages and transpovirons form a class of mobile
elements.•Polinton-like elements include viruses, transposons and plasmids.•Virophages …