Moïra Dion
PhD student in Biochemistry, Microbiology and Bioinformatics
Université Laval
Award-winning publication: Phage diversity, genomics and phylogeny
Published in: Nature Reviews Microbiology
Abstract
The literature review by Moïra Dion explores the diversity of phages from the genomic and morphological perspectives, as well as the evolutionary relationships between them. Phages, which are viruses that attack bacteria, are the most diverse and abundant biological entities on Earth. Recent advances in viral metagenomics led to the discovery of a catalogue of phages in a range of environments. Curiously, despite the phages’ remarkable genomic diversity, the structure of the proteins that make up these viral particles remains quite limited. Owing to the genes they exchange, phages are interconnected like no other living organisms, making their evolution unique and complex to establish.