Advances in understanding archaea-virus interactions in controlled and natural environments

Abstract

Our understanding of host-virus interactions in archaeal systems generally lags behind our knowledge of host-virus interactions in bacterial and eukaryotic systems. This is due to the limited number of archaeal host-virus systems available for study under laboratory conditions, as well as the absence of diseases known to be caused by archaea. However, in recent years there has been a rapid expansion of our understanding of archaeal host-virus interactions combining traditional genetic and biochemical approaches with 'omics' based approaches in both laboratory and natural environmental studies. We highlight here the emerging features of host-virus interactions in archaea with a particular emphasis on host-virus interactions gathered from the study of archaeal viruses from high temperature acidic thermal environments.