Viruses often tow a very fine line between biotic and abiotic, and megaviruses are at the forefront of divide. A new virus was recently discovered in a wastewater treatment facility in Austria using metagenomic analysis of water samples. Researchers were able to analyze nearly 7000 genomes present in the water to reassemble a that of the newly identified Klosneuvirus (KNV). This is just one of many megaviruses that have a genome that is larger than those of some bacteria, yet it seems to have a gene expression profile that is remarkably diverse and expansive. 15% of the genes that make up the viral genome are predicted to be expressed, and the gene families present most closely resemble those of Mimiviruses. Remarkably, the genome encodes proteins and enzymes that are similar to cellular machinery of translation, including aminoacyl transfer RNA synthetases that can be charged with all twenty amino acids. The similarities to other large viruses and presence of genetic information that so closely approximates dynamic cellular proteins lends credence to the assertion that viruses came from cells. The virus doesn't need translational machinery to persist, but its presence makes it a degenerate cell of sorts that may have lost some capacity to be alive while keeping other. Moving forward, I’m curious to see what host range such large viruses may achieve and whether these infection events potentially represent a new endosymbiotic relationship.
-Andrew
-Andrew
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