Nano

Viral genomes have three architectures. “ Monopartite ” viruses have a single genome segment within a single viral particle. “ Segmented ” viruses have several segments within a single viral particle “ Multipartite ” viruses have several segments, each isolated in a distinct viral particle. This physical separation of the genetic information is a mystery. Why and how can these viruses infect a host without losing segments/genes ?

The Nano project showed that a nanovirus accumulates its segments/genes differentially, with some being frequent and others rare, at the risk of being lost. The results challenge the conceptual framework of virology. A nanovirus can control the expression of its genes by changing their frequency in the population, and the rarest are not lost because even alone within a cell they exchange the products of their expression with neighbouring cells, giving the virus a multicellular existence.