New giant viruses identified through genomic analysis and phylogenetic analyses in Brazilian amoeba hosts, indicating ecological relevance.
Marseilleviruses are giant viruses that infect amoebas and have been isolated from various environments. Here, we describe a new strain, isolated from a water sample collected from the Paraguay River in the Brazilian Pantanal, which we have named "Marseillevirus pantanense". Transmission and scanning electron microscopy revealed icosahedral particles approximately 190 nm in diameter. Genomic and phylogenetic analyses show that M. pantanense has a 379,900-bp genome with 496 open reading frames, including 12 ORFans and two tRNAs. Furthermore, phylogenetic analysis places M. pantanense within Marseillevirus lineage A, group I. The findings of in this study underscore the importance of isolating new viruses to expand our understanding of the abundance and distribution of giant viruses in Brazilian biomes.
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