#giant-viruses

#giant-viruses

Scientists report that a type of giant virus multiplies furiously by hijacking its host's protein-making machinery - long-sought experimental evidence that viruses can co-opt a system typically associated with cellular life. The researchers found that the virus makes a complex of three proteins that takes over its host's protein-production system, which then churns out viral proteins instead of the host's own. Virologists had already suspected that viruses could perform such a feat, says Frederik Schulz, a computational biologist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who was not involved with the work.