Credit: Image courtesy of Trina McMahon
Using metagenome data sets collected over several years in northern freshwater lakes, a team led by researchers at The Ohio State University and the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (DOE JGI) uncovered 25 novel sequences of virophages. Reported October 11, 2017 in Nature Communications, the identification of these novel sequences effectively doubles the number of virophages known since their discovery a decade ago. The team used data from a 3-year metagenomic time series collected from Trout Bog Lake, a small acidic bog in Wisconsin by collaborators at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.