Megavirus
| Megavirus | |
|---|---|
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| Virus classification | |
| Group: | Group I (dsDNA) |
| (unranked): | Nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses |
| Family: | Megaviridae |
| Genus: | Megavirus |
| Species | |
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Megavirus chilensis |
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Megavirus chilensis
Megavirus is a viral genus containing a single identified species named Megavirus chilensis (MGVC), phylogenetically related to Acanthamoeba polyphaga Mimivirus (APMV). In colloquial speech, MGVC is more commonly referred to as just “Megavirus”. Until the discovery of pandoraviruses in 2013 it had the largest capsid diameter of all known viruses, as well as the largest and most complex genome among all known viruses.
Megavirus was isolated from a water sample collected in April 2010 off the coast of Chile, near the marine station in Las Cruces, by Prof. Jean-Michel Claverie and Dr. Chantal Abergel from the Structural & Genomic Information laboratory (IGS, CNRS and Aix-Marseille University). Researchers from this laboratory were already involved in the characterization of Mimivirus, the first described giant T2 Virus. Megavirus was isolated by co-cultivation with a variety of Acanthamoeba laboratory strains (A. polyphaga, A. castellanii, A. griffini) following a protocol pioneered by Dr. Timothy Rowbotham for isolating intracellular parasitic bacteria. Megavirus infects amoebas.
Megavirus is not yet classified by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, but will be proposed as a member of the Megaviridae, a new family constituted of the large DNA viruses the genome of which is around a million base pairs in length. Members of this new family defined by a number of common specific features (Table 1 and 2) will include various viruses likely to share a common ancestor with Mimivirus and Megavirus, although their present genome size was reduced below 1 Mb. Megavirus also joins a group of large viruses known as nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDV), although this term appears increasingly inappropriate to designate viruses replicating entirely within the cytoplasm of their hosts through the de novo synthesis of large virion factories. Megavirus and Mimivirus share 594 orthologous genes, mostly located within the center segment of their genomes. At the amino-acid sequence level, the corresponding proteins share an average of 50% identical residues.
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