Discovery upturns understanding of how some viruses multiply

Study finds that the viral genome can be split between different cells and still cause infection, challenging a fundamental paradigm in virus research Scientists have shown that different segments of a virus genome can exist in distinct cells but work together to cause an infection. The findings, published in the open-access journal eLife, upturn a fundamental model in virology that a virus genome enters and replicates within a single cell and then moves on to replicate in another. Multipartite viruses are intriguing viral systems because their genome is divided into several segments and each is enclosed within a distinct virus particle. It has long been believed that all of the genome segments must move together from cell to cell to cause an infection. But the new study shows this is not the case. “The chances of a multipartite virus losing an essential genome segment during transmission are estimated to be so high, its ability...