Researchers discover that giant viruses can lie dormant within a multicellular host genome, reactivate on cue, and be inherited like a super-gene.

Researchers at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen have shown that giant viruses long thought to exist only as fleeting, free-living particles that can embed themselves permanently in the genome of a multicellular host, lie dormant for generations and then wake up on demand. The study challenges fundamental assumptions about how giant viruses operate and establishes a powerful new model for studying viral latency in complex organisms.