Bodo saltans virus defines the most abundant giant viruses in the ocean and highlights the genomic plasticity, rooted in evolutionary arms races, that gave rise to giant viruses.

Jyvaskylavirus, the northernmost isolate of the Marseilleviridae family, shows that giant viruses are also part of the boreal Finnish environment and brings structural information with relevance for understanding other viruses.

Metabolic pathways found to date in giant virus raise the question if these viral enzymes provide some level of autonomy to viruses or if they are used to expand the host metabolism.

A viral heliorhodopsin from Emiliania huxleyi virus 202 (V2HeR3) is a light-activated proton transporter, which has the potential to depolarize the host cells by light, possibly to overcome the host defense mechanisms or to prevent superinfection.

Mutualistic viruses called virophages are common genome inhabitants of a marine protist, where they may protect host populations from giant viruses.

As a Russian doll, mimivirus dsDNA genome is folded in a nucleocapsid-like structure enclosed in the nucleoid compartment, encased in the icosahedral capsid itself decorated by long glycosylated fibrils surprisingly made of the same protein as the genomic fiber.

Engineered anion-conducting channelrhodopsins with enhanced red-light sensitivity and accelerated kinetics enable precise, low-intensity optical silencing of neurons, advancing optogenetic control in neuroscience research.

The formation of HIV-1 particles requires a bending of the membrane that cannot be achieved by the Gag protein alone and thus there is need for the I-BAR protein IRSp53 to aid in the formation of HIV-1 buds.

Characterization of PML subnuclear structures during human cytomegalovirus infection demonstrates that prolonged interferon and DNA damage signaling can induce giant PML nuclear bodies which sequentially entrap both nucleic acids and viral proteins as a cytoprotective mechanism.

In vitro reconstitution shows how HIV-1 Gag assemblies on membranes can package the RNA genome in the presence of a vast excess of competing cellular RNAs, and that selectivity and immature lattice assembly are deeply intertwined with one another.