"With the discovery of Mimivirus ten years ago and, more recently, Megavirus chilensis[1], researchers thought they had reached the farthest corners of the viral world in terms of size and genetic complexity. With a diameter in the region of a micrometer and a genome incorporating more than 1,100 genes, these giant viruses, which infect amoebas of the Acanthamoeba genus, had already largely encroached on areas previously thought to be the exclusive domain of bacteria. For the sake of comparison, common viruses such as the influenza or AIDS viruses only contain around ten genes each ."
In an article published in Science, researchers announced they had discovered two new giant viruses:
- Pandoravirus salinus, on the coast of Chile;
- Pandoravirus dulcis, in a freshwater pond in Melbourne, Australia.
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