Department of Plant Pathology, Nebraska Center for Virology, 205 Morrison Hall, University of Nebraska, Lincoln, NE 68583, USA.
Viruses. 2011 Jan;3(1):32-46. doi: 10.3390/v3010032. Epub 2011 Jan 18.
Viruses with genomes larger than 300 kb and up to 1.2 Mb, which encode hundreds of proteins, are being discovered and characterized with increasing frequency. Most, but not all, of these large viruses (often referred to as giruses) infect protists that live in aqueous environments. Bioinformatic analyses of metagenomes of aqueous samples indicate that large DNA viruses are quite common in nature and await discovery. One issue that is perhaps not appreciated by the virology community is that large viruses, even those classified in the same family, can differ significantly in morphology, lifestyle, and gene complement. This brief commentary, which will mention some of these unique properties, was stimulated by the characterization of the newest member of this club, virus CroV (Fischer, M.G.; Allen, M.J.; Wilson, W.H.; Suttle, C.A. Giant virus with a remarkable complement of genes infects marine zooplankton. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2010, 107, 19508-19513). CroV has a 730 kb genome (with ∼544 protein-encoding genes) and infects the marine microzooplankton Cafeteria roenbergensis producing a lytic infection.
越来越频繁地发现并描述了具有 300kb 以上至 1.2Mb 基因组的病毒，这些病毒能编码数百种蛋白质。这些大型病毒（通常被称为巨型病毒）中的大多数（但不是全部）感染生活在水相环境中的原生生物。对水生样品宏基因组的生物信息学分析表明，自然界中存在大量的大型 DNA 病毒，有待发现。病毒学界可能没有意识到的一个问题是，大型病毒，即使是属于同一科的病毒，在形态、生活方式和基因组成方面也可能有很大的差异。这篇简短的评论提到了其中的一些独特性质，其灵感来自于这个俱乐部的最新成员 CroV（Fischer, M.G.; Allen, M.J.; Wilson, W.H.; Suttle, C.A. Giant virus with a remarkable complement of genes infects marine zooplankton. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 2010, 107, 19508-19513）的描述。CroV 具有 730kb 的基因组（约 544 个蛋白编码基因），并感染海洋微型浮游动物 Cafeteria roenbergensis 产生裂解性感染。
