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Agnostic viral detection at single-cell resolution reveals novel viruses

We introduce a method that detects viral sequences in RNA sequencing data on the basis of highly conserved proteins, enabling the detection of more than 100,000 RNA virus species. We analyzed the presence of novel viruses and host gene expression in parallel to characterize viral tropism and host immune responses in individual cells.

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Fig. 1: Taxonomic tree of virus species detectable using our workflow versus reference-based methods.

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This is a summary of: Luebbert, L. et al. Detection of viral sequences at single-cell resolution identifies novel viruses associated with host gene expression changes. Nat. Biotechnol. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02614-y (2025).

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Agnostic viral detection at single-cell resolution reveals novel viruses. Nat Biotechnol (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41587-025-02638-4

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