2005/06/07 by Jean‐Michel Claverie, Hiroyuki Ogata, Claverie, Jean-Michel +9
Agricultural and Biological Sciences · Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · #Bacteriophages and microbial interactions #FOS: Biological sciences #Plant Virus Research Studies #Plant and Fungal Interactions Research #Populations and Evolution (q-bio.PE)
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.q-bio/0506007
openalex publication_date 2005/06/07 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
The recently discovered Acanthamoeba polyphaga Mimivirus is the largest known DNA virus. Its particle size (>400 nm), genome length (1.2 million bp) and large gene repertoire (911 protein coding genes) blur the established boundaries between viruses and parasitic cellular organisms. In addition, the analysis of its genome sequence identified new types of genes not expected to be seen in a virus, such as aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases and other central components of the translation machinery. In this article, we examine how the finding of a giant virus for the first time overlapping with the world of cellular organisms in terms of size and genome complexity might durably influence the way we look at microbial biodiversity, and force us to fundamentally revise our classification of life forms. We propose to introduce the word "girus" to recognize the intermediate status of these giant DNA viruses, the genome complexity of which make them closer to small parasitic prokaryotes than to regular viruses.