Mycoviruses in the Genomic Era: Ecological, Evolutionary and One Health Perspectives.

Mycoviruses are widespread and ecologically significant, and modern metatranscriptomic and metagenomic approaches have expanded known mycovirome diversity by revealing deeply divergent RNA virus lineages.

• Why it matters: Their hidden influence on fungal diversity, metabolism, and symbioses matters for agricultural and clinical outcomes, yet discovery methods have biases and evidence for cross-kingdom transfer varies.
• What they did: The review traces detection from early dsRNA assays and Sanger sequencing to metatranscriptomic, metagenomic, and petabase-scale data mining, then compares discovery strengths and biases and evaluates transfer evidence.
• The result: Field-validated hypovirulence-based biocontrol of phytopathogenic fungi is the only application with strong support, while mycovirus-based therapy for human fungal infection remains a long-term hypothesis.

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