Giant virus in the sea: Extending the realm of Megaviridae to Viridiplantae.

ABSTRACT: The viral nature of the first "giant virus," Mimivirus, was realized in 2003, 10 y after its initial isolation from the water of a cooling tower in Bradford, UK. Soon after its genome was sequenced, the mining of the Global Ocean Sampling environmental sequence database revealed that the closest relatives of Mimivirus, only known to infect Acanthamoeba, were to be found in the sea. These predicted marine Mimivirus relatives remained elusive until 2010, with the first genomic characterization of a virus infecting a heterotrophic unicellular eukaryote, the microflagellate grazer Cafeteria roenbergensis. The genome analysis of a virus (PgV) infecting the common unicellular algae Phaeocystis globosa now shows that it is a bona fide member of the Mimivirus family (i.e., the Megaviridae), extend

SUBMITTER: Claverie JM 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3917960 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature