Tunicate metatranscriptomes reveal ancient virus-host co-divergence and inter-order recombination in the evolutionary history of disease-causing viruses
Mary E. Petrone, Joe Grove, Rhys H. Parry, Kate Van Brussel, Jonathon C. O. Mifsud, Zuhairah Dindar, Shi-Qiang Mei, Mǎng Shī, Olivia M. H. Turnbull, Ezequiel Miguel Marzinelli, Edward Charles Holmes
The paper analyzes tunicate metatranscriptomes to show that some disease-causing RNA viruses evolved before vertebrates and that recombination between viral orders shaped their evolution.
Current Biology · Jun 4, 2025Peer-reviewedMicrobiology