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Journal of Virology, December 2006, p. 11678-11685, Vol. 80, No. 23
0022-538X/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JVI.00940-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Mimivirus Giant Particles Incorporate a Large Fraction of Anonymous and Unique Gene Products{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Patricia Renesto,1* Chantal Abergel,2 Philippe Decloquement,1 Danielle Moinier,3 Saïd Azza,1 Hiroyuki Ogata,2 Patrick Fourquet,4 Jean-Pierre Gorvel,4 and Jean-Michel Claverie2

Unité des Rickettsies, CNRS UMR 6020, IFR-48, Faculté de Médecine, 27 Boulevard Jean Moulin,1 Information Génomique & Structurale, CNRS UPR 2589, IBSM, Parc Scientifique et Technologique de Luminy, 163 Avenue de Luminy, Case 934,2 Institut de Biologie Structurale et Microbiologie, 31 Chemin Joseph Aiguier,3 Centre d'Immunologie INSERM-CNRS-Université de la Méditerranée de Marseille-Luminy, Parc Scientifique et Technologique de Luminy, 13288 Marseille, France4

Received 9 May 2006/ Accepted 5 September 2006

Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus is the largest known virus in both particle size and genome complexity. Its 1.2-Mb genome encodes 911 proteins, among which only 298 have predicted functions. The composition of purified isolated virions was analyzed by using a combined electrophoresis/mass spectrometry approach allowing the identification of 114 proteins. Besides the expected major structural components, the viral particle packages 12 proteins unambiguously associated with transcriptional machinery, 3 proteins associated with DNA repair, and 2 topoisomerases. Other main functional categories represented in the virion include oxidative pathways and protein modification. More than half of the identified virion-associated proteins correspond to anonymous genes of unknown function, including 45 "ORFans." As demonstrated by both Western blotting and immunogold staining, some of these "ORFans," which lack any convincing similarity in the sequence databases, are endowed with antigenic properties. Thus, anonymous and unique genes constituting the majority of the mimivirus gene complement encode bona fide proteins that are likely to participate in well-integrated processes.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Unité des Rickettsies, CNRS UMR 6020, IFR-48, Faculté de Médecine, 27 Boulevard Jean Moulin, 13385 Marseille, France. Phone: 33 491 32 46 30. Fax: 33 491 38 77 72. E-mail: patricia.renesto{at}medecine.univ-mrs.fr.

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 13 September 2006.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jvi.asm.org/.

Journal of Virology, December 2006, p. 11678-11685, Vol. 80, No. 23
0022-538X/06/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JVI.00940-06
Copyright © 2006, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.



This article has been cited by other articles:

  • Byrne, D., Grzela, R., Lartigue, A., Audic, S., Chenivesse, S., Encinas, S., Claverie, J.-M., Abergel, C. (2009). The polyadenylation site of Mimivirus transcripts obeys a stringent 'hairpin rule'. Genome Res 19: 1233-1242 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Ogata, H., Claverie, J.-M. (2007). Unique genes in giant viruses: Regular substitution pattern and anomalously short size. Genome Res 17: 1353-1361 [Abstract] [Full Text]  
  • Maxwell, K. L., Frappier, L. (2007). Viral Proteomics. Microbiol. Mol. Biol. Rev. 71: 398-411 [Abstract] [Full Text]  


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