Giant viruses have brought new perspectives on the virosphere. They have been increasingly described in humans, including in several metagenomic studies. Here, we searched into the metagenome of the 5300-year-old Ötzi mummy for the presence of giant virus-related sequences using MG-Digger pipeline. We found 19 reads (0.00006% of the total read number) that best matched (mean ± standard deviation (range) for e-values of 5.0E-6 ± 1.4E-6 (6.0E-5-4.0E-10) and for amino acid identity of 69.9 ± 8.7% (46.4-84.9%) and most significantly with sequences from various giant viruses, including mostly mimiviruses. This expands current knowledge on the ubiquity and relationship with humans of giant viruses.
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http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11262-021-01823-2 | DOI Listing |
DNA Repair (Amst)
December 2024
Agriculture and Marine Science Program, Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Science, Kochi University, Nankoku, Kochi 783-8502, Japan; Agricultural Science, Graduate School of Integrated Arts and Science, Kochi University, Nankoku, Kochi 783-8502, Japan. Electronic address:
Most giant viruses including Mimiviridae family build large viral factories within the host cytoplasms. These giant viruses are presumed to possess specific genes that enable the rapid and massive replication of their large double-stranded DNA genomes within viral factories. It has been revealed that a functionally uncharacterized protein, MutS7, is expressed during the operational phase of the viral factory.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMicrobes Infect
December 2024
Laboratório de Vírus, Departamento de Microbiologia, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais (UFMG). Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, 31270-901, Brazil. Electronic address:
Giant viruses have fascinated the scientific community due to their immense particles and extensive genomes. A significant surge of interest in the field has been observed over the past 20 years following the discovery of mimiviruses, the first amoeba-infecting viruses described. However, with the discovery of new amoeba viruses and those from other protists, the concept of "giant viruses" has become increasingly controversial in the scientific literature.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFmSystems
December 2024
Institute for Chemical Research, Kyoto University, Uji, Japan.
Giant viruses are crucial for marine ecosystem dynamics because they regulate microeukaryotic community structure, accelerate carbon and nutrient cycles, and drive the evolution of their hosts through co-evolutionary processes. Previously reported long-term observations revealed that these viruses display seasonal fluctuations in abundance. However, the underlying genetic mechanisms driving such dynamics of these viruses remain largely unknown.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCommun Biol
December 2024
Department of Molecular Cell Biology and Immunology, Amsterdam UMC, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Understanding the molecular mechanisms which drive and modulate host-pathogen interactions are essential when designing effective therapeutic and diagnostic approaches aimed at controlling infectious diseases. Certain large and giant viruses have recently been discovered as components of the human virome, yet little is known about their interactions with the host immune system. We have dissected the role of viral N-linked glycans during the interaction between the glycoproteins from six chloroviruses (belonging to three chlorovirus classes: NC64A, SAG, and Osy viruses) and the representative carbohydrate-binding receptors of the innate immune system.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGenes Genet Syst
December 2024
Division of Biochemistry, Faculty of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Tohoku Medical and Pharmaceutical University.
Nucleosomes are complexes of DNA and histone proteins that form the basis of eukaryotic chromatin. Eukaryotic histones are descended from Archaean homologs; however, how this occurred remains unclear. Our previous genetic analysis on the budding yeast nucleosome identified 26 histone residues conserved between S.
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