Exploring the prokaryotic virosphere

The world of prokaryotic viruses, including the traditional bacteriophages and the viruses of Archaea, is currently in a period of renaissance, brought about largely by our new capabilities in (meta)genomics and by the isolation of diverse novel virus-host systems. In this review, we highlight some of the directions where we believe research on the prokaryotic virosphere will lead us in the near future. (C) 2008 Elsevier Masson SAS. All rights reserved.