Co-Isolation and Characterization of Two Pandoraviruses and a Mimivirus from a Riverbank in Japan
Laboratory of Biology, Department of Liberal Arts, Faculty of Science, Tokyo University of Science, Shinjuku, Tokyo 162-8601, Japan
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Viruses 2019, 11(12), 1123; https://doi.org/10.3390/v11121123
Received: 25 September 2019 / Revised: 14 November 2019 / Accepted: 19 November 2019 / Published: 4 December 2019
(This article belongs to the Section Viruses of Plants, Fungi and Protozoa)
Giant viruses, like pandoraviruses and mimiviruses, have been discovered from diverse environments, and their broad global distribution has been established. Here, we report two new isolates of Pandoravirus spp. and one Mimivirus sp., named Pandoravirus hades, Pandoravirus persephone, and Mimivirus sp. isolate styx, co-isolated from riverbank soil in Japan. We obtained nearly complete sequences of the family B DNA polymerase gene (polB) of P. hades and P. persephone; the former carried two known intein regions, while the latter had only one. Phylogenetic analysis revealed that the two new pandoravirus isolates are closely related to Pandoravirus dulcis. Furthermore, random amplified polymorphic DNA analysis revealed that P. hades and P. persephone might harbor different genome structures. Based on phylogenetic analysis of the partial polB sequence, Mimivirus sp. isolate styx belongs to mimivirus lineage A. DNA staining suggested that the Pandoravirus spp. asynchronously replicates in amoeba cells while Mimivirus sp. replicates synchronously. We also observed that P. persephone- or Mimivirus sp. isolate styx-infected amoeba cytoplasm is extruded by the cells. To the best of our knowledge, we are the first to report the isolation of pandoraviruses in Asia. In addition, our results emphasize the importance of virus isolation from soil to reveal the ecology of giant viruses.
Keywords:
pandoravirus; mimivirus; giant virus; DNA polymerase; intein; replication cycle; virus diversity
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited
MDPI and ACS Style
Akashi, M.; Takemura, M. Co-Isolation and Characterization of Two Pandoraviruses and a Mimivirus from a Riverbank in Japan. Viruses 2019, 11, 1123.
Show more citation formats
Note that from the first issue of 2016, MDPI journals use article numbers instead of page numbers. See further details here.
- Supplementary File 1:
ZIP-Document (ZIP, 30065 KB)