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VIRAL EVOLUTION

Plasmid vesicles mimicking virions

Nature Microbiology volume 2, pages 1340–1341 (2017)Cite this article

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A newly described plasmid, which encodes proteins facilitating its packaging and cell-to-cell transfer via membrane vesicles, challenges the way we think about the delineation of viruses, plasmids and extracellular vesicles.

For a long time, viruses and plasmids have been studied as separate objects within different scientific communities, with specific journals and dedicated meetings. However, in previous decades, data suggesting a strong evolutionary connection between these two elusive biological ‘entities’ have started to accumulate1. In this issue of Nature Microbiology, Erdmann and co-workers report a new exciting finding that further blurs the virus/plasmid distinction2. Their discovery also strengthens the existence of possible evolutionary links between plasmids/viruses and a third intriguing biological entity, membrane vesicles (MVs).

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Fig. 1: A continuum of vesicle-like entities spanning the world of viruses and plasmids.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Département de Microbiologie, Institut Pasteur, F-75015, Paris, France

    Patrick Forterre, Violette Da Cunha & Ryan Catchpole

  2. Institute for Integrative Biology of the Cell (I2BC), CEA, CNRS, Univ. Paris-Sud, Univ. Paris-Saclay, 91198, Gif-sur-Yvette cedex, France

    Patrick Forterre, Violette Da Cunha & Ryan Catchpole

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  1. Patrick Forterre
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  2. Violette Da Cunha
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  3. Ryan Catchpole
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Correspondence to Patrick Forterre.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Forterre, P., Da Cunha, V. & Catchpole, R. Plasmid vesicles mimicking virions. Nat Microbiol 2, 1340–1341 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41564-017-0032-3

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