Wednesday, April 29, 2009

New Details About Mysterious Giant Virus Uncovered

The N-terminal and C-terminal jelly-roll domains are colored green and red, respectively. Top left is a ribbon diagram of the adenovirus capsid protein. Diagrammatic representation of the arrangement of the β strands (arrows) within each jelly-roll are given for adenovirus, PBCV1, and Mimivirus at the top right, bottom left, and bottom right, respectively. The β strands within each domain are labelled A to H. This gives rise to the two opposing BIDG and CHEF β sheets in each jelly-roll as indicated in the ribbon diagram. (Credit: Structural Studies of the Giant Mimivirus Xiao C, Kuznetsov YG, Sun S, Hafenstein SL, Kostyuchenko VA, et al. PLoS Biology Vol. 7, No. 4, e92 doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1000092)

From Science Daily:

ScienceDaily (Apr. 29, 2009) — An international team of researchers has determined key structural features of the largest known virus, findings that could help scientists studying how the simplest life evolved and whether the unusual virus causes any human diseases.

The mimivirus has been called a possible "missing link" between viruses and living cells. It was discovered accidentally by French scientists in 1992 but wasn't confirmed to be a virus until 2003.

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