Rycina 32 Mykowirusy – wirusy infekujące grzyby J

Mycoviruses (

Ancient Greek Ancient Greek includes the forms of the Greek language used in ancient Greece and the ancient world from around 1500 BC to 300 BC. It is often roughly divided into the following periods: Mycenaean Greek (), Dark Ages (), the Archaic peri ...

: μύκης ' ("fungus") +

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

'), also known as mycophages, are

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...

es that infect

fungi A fungus ( : fungi or funguses) is any member of the group of eukaryotic organisms that includes microorganisms such as yeasts and molds, as well as the more familiar mushrooms. These organisms are classified as a kingdom, separately from ...

. The majority of mycoviruses have

double-stranded RNA Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a polymeric molecule essential in various biological roles in coding, decoding, regulation and expression of genes. RNA and deoxyribonucleic acid ( DNA) are nucleic acids. Along with lipids, proteins, and carbohydr ...

(dsRNA) genomes and isometric particles, but approximately 30% have positive-sense, single-stranded RNA (+ssRNA) genomes. True mycoviruses demonstrate an ability to be transmitted to infect other healthy fungi. Many double-stranded RNA elements that have been described in fungi do not fit this description, and in these cases they are referred to as

virus-like particle Virus-like particles (VLPs) are molecules that closely resemble viruses, but are non-infectious because they contain no viral genetic material. They can be naturally occurring or synthesized through the individual expression of viral structural pro ...

s or VLPs. Preliminary results indicate that most mycoviruses co-diverge with their hosts, i.e. their

phylogeny A phylogenetic tree (also phylogeny or evolutionary tree Felsenstein J. (2004). ''Inferring Phylogenies'' Sinauer Associates: Sunderland, MA.) is a branching diagram or a tree showing the evolutionary relationships among various biological spec ...

is largely congruent with that of their primary hosts. However, many virus families containing mycoviruses have only sparsely been sampled. Mycovirology is the study of mycoviruses. It is a special subdivision of

virology Virology is the Scientific method, scientific study of biological viruses. It is a subfield of microbiology that focuses on their detection, structure, classification and evolution, their methods of infection and exploitation of host (biology), ...

and seeks to understand and describe the taxonomy, host range, origin and evolution, transmission and movement of mycoviruses and their impact on host phenotype.

History

The first record of an economic impact of mycoviruses on fungi was recorded in cultivated mushrooms (''

Agaricus bisporus ''Agaricus bisporus'' is an edible basidiomycete mushroom native to grasslands in Eurasia and North America. It has two color states while immature – white and brown – both of which have various names, with additional names for the mature ...

'') in the late 1940s and was called the La France disease. Hollings found more than three different types of viruses in the abnormal

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