Aix-Marseille Université, Unité de Recherche sur les Maladies Infectieuses et Tropicales Emergentes, Marseille, France.
Intervirology. 2012;55(5):321-32. doi: 10.1159/000336562. Epub 2012 Apr 14.
Interest in giant viruses has risen sharply since 2003, following the discovery of the Mimivirus and four other protist-infecting giant viruses that are linked to the nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs). Despite considerable heterogeneity in hosts and genome sizes, the NCLDVs have been shown to be monophyletic based on analyses of their sequences and gene repertoires and recent studies have proposed that these viruses share a common ancient ancestor and compose a fourth domain of life. In addition, several characteristics of these giant viruses contradict or do not match the criteria used for the canonical definition of viruses, and the NCLDV denomination is not completely appropriate. We propose here to define a new viral order named Megavirales.
自 2003 年发现巨型病毒 Mimivirus 以及另外四种感染原生生物的巨型病毒以来，人们对巨型病毒的兴趣急剧上升，这些病毒与核质大 DNA 病毒（NCLDVs）有关。尽管宿主和基因组大小存在很大的异质性，但根据它们的序列和基因库分析，已经证明 NCLDVs 是单系的，最近的研究还提出这些病毒拥有共同的古老祖先，并构成生命的第四个领域。此外，这些巨型病毒的几个特征与用于病毒规范定义的标准相矛盾或不匹配，NCLDV 的命名并不完全合适。因此，我们建议在这里定义一个新的病毒目，名为 Megavirales。
