Eukaryotic viruses encode the ribosomal protein eL40.

Viruses in the phylum are large, complex and have an exceptionally diverse metabolic repertoire. Some encode hundreds of products involved in the translation of mRNA into protein, but none was known to encode any of the proteins in ribosomes, the central engines of translation. With the discovery of the eL40 gene in FloV-SA2, we report the first example of a eukaryotic virus encoding a ribosomal protein and show that this gene is also present and expressed in other uncultivated marine giant viruses. FloV-SA2 also encodes a "group II" viral rhodopsin, a viral light-activated protein of unknown function previously only reported in metagenomes. FloV-SA2 is thus a valuable model system for investigating new mechanisms by which viruses manipulate eukaryotic cell metabolism.