Scientists were surprised by the discovery of the virus in the world's largest offshore region of Chile. This virus has more than 1000 genomes, scientists are thus explained to AFP on Monday (10/10/2011).
The new type of virus called Megavirus chilensis, based on the size and place of its discovery. Virus genome is 6.5% larger than the previous largest viral DNA code, Mimivirus, which was isolated in 2003.
In theory, different viruses with bacteria due to smaller and can not reproduce without a host of living things. However, the size of this new type of virus is greater than bacterial and viral DNA is terkompleks.
This virus was isolated from samples of sea water in offshore areas Las Cruses, Chile. Until now, unknown creatures hosts of this virus.
"M. chilensis seems harmless to humans," said Jean Michel Claverie, researchers from the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France which involved the study.
Because of large size, then to see this virus, Claverie says, "You do not need an electron microscope to see it, you could see with ordinary light microscope."
The findings were published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. In detail, the virus genome consists of 1,259,197 base pairs of nitrogen and 1120 genes.
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