Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 108, Issue 42, Pages 17486-17491Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1110889108
Keywords
Mimiviridae; DNA virus phylogeny; girus; viral translation; tree of life
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Funding
- Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique
- Agence Nationale de la Recherche [ANR-BLAN08-0089]
- Direction Generale de l'Armement
- ASSEMBLE initiative (European Commission)
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Mimivirus, a DNA virus infecting acanthamoeba, was for a long time the largest known virus both in terms of particle size and gene content. Its genome encodes 979 proteins, including the first four aminoacyl tRNA synthetases (ArgRS, CysRS, MetRS, and TyrRS) ever found outside of cellular organisms. The discovery that Mimivirus encoded trademark cellular functions prompted a wealth of theoretical studies revisiting the concept of virus and associated large DNA viruses with the emergence of early eukaryotes. However, the evolutionary significance of these unique features remained impossible to assess in absence of a Mimivirus relative exhibiting a suitable evolutionary divergence. Here, we present Megavirus chilensis, a giant virus isolated off the coast of Chile, but capable of replicating in fresh water acanthamoeba. Its 1,259,197-bp genome is the largest viral genome fully sequenced so far. It encodes 1,120 putative proteins, of which 258 (23%) have no Mimivirus homologs. The 594 Megavirus/Mimivirus orthologs share an average of 50% of identical residues. Despite this divergence, Megavirus retained all of the genomic features characteristic of Mimivirus, including its cellular-like genes. Moreover, Megavirus exhibits three additional aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase genes (IleRS, TrpRS, and AsnRS) adding strong support to the previous suggestion that the Mimivirus/Megavirus lineage evolved from an ancestral cellular genome by reductive evolution. The main differences in gene content between Mimivirus and Megavirus genomes are due to (i) lineages specific gains or losses of genes, (ii) lineage specific gene family expansion or deletion, and (iii) the insertion/migration of mobile elements (intron, intein).
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