"Scientists report that a type of giant virus multiplies furiously by hijacking its host's protein-making machinery - long-sought experimental evidence that viruses can co-opt a system typically associated with cellular life. The researchers found that the virus makes a complex of three proteins that takes over its host's protein-production system, which then churns out viral proteins instead of the host's own. Virologists had already suspected that viruses could perform such a feat, says Frederik Schulz, a computational biologist at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California, who was not involved with the work."
"Giant viruses, which are so named for their massive genomes, might seem exotic, but they are decidedly commonplace. They tend to infect single-celled organisms called protists - a group that includes amoebae and protozoa - that "are all over the place", says Eugene Koonin, an evolutionary biologist at the US National Center for Biotechnology Information in Bethesda, Maryland. The giant DNA virus used in this study, Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus, has a genome that is about five times larger than those of poxviruses, which have the biggest genomes of any virus that infects humans. Mimivirus is giant in another way too: it is large enough to be seen under a light microscope."
Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus hijacks host protein-making machinery by assembling a complex of three viral proteins that commandeer host ribosomes and redirect translation toward viral proteins instead of host proteins. Giant viruses commonly infect protists, including amoebae and protozoa, and possess massive genomes; mimivirus's genome is roughly five times larger than poxvirus genomes and is large enough to be seen under a light microscope. Viral proteins that interact with ribosomes were isolated, and the three candidate proteins were genetically deleted from the virus to test their role in taking over host translation.
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