Mollivirus

Mollivirus sibericum
Virus classification
Group: Group I (dsDNA)
Order: Unassigned
Family: Unassigned
Genus: Mollivirus
Species
  • M. sibericum

Mollivirus sibericum is a giant virus discovered in 2015 by French researchers Chantal Abergel and Jean-Michel Claverie in a 30,000-year-old sample of Siberian permafrost, where the team had previously found the unrelated giant virus Pithovirus sibericum. Mollivirus sibericum is a spherical DNA virus with a diameter of 500–600 nanometers (0.5–0.6 μm).[1][2]

Mollivirus sibericum is the fourth ancient virus that scientists have found frozen in permafrost since 2003.[3]

Description

Mollivirus sibericum is an approximately spherical virion 0.6 μm in diameter. It encloses a 651 kb GC-rich genome encoding 523 proteins, of which 64% are ORFs.[1][4] The host's ribosomal proteins are packaged in the virion.[1]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 Legendre, Matthieu; Lartigue, Audrey; Bertaux, Lionel; Jeudy, Sandra; Bartoli, Julia; Lescot, Magali; Alempic, Jean-Marie; Ramus, Claire; Bruley, Christophe; Labadie, Karine; Shmakova, Lyubov; Rivkina, Elizaveta; Couté, Yohann; Abergel, Chantal; Claverie, Jean-Michel (8 September 2015). "In-depth study of, a new 30,000-y-old giant virus infecting". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences: 201510795. doi:10.1073/pnas.1510795112.
  2. Christensen, Jen (2015-09-11). "Ancient squirrel's nest leads to discovery of giant virus". CNN. Retrieved 13 September 2015.
  3. Feltman, Rachel A giant ancient virus was just uncovered in melting ice — and it won’t be the last Washington Post. December 14, 2015
  4. Strom, Marcus Prehistoric 'Frankenvirus' Mollivirus sibericum uncovered in Siberian permafrost Sydney Morning Herald. December 14, 2014
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