Mimivirus is a genus of giant viruses, in the family Mimiviridae. It is believed that Amoeba serve as their natural hosts. [2][3] It also refers to a group of phylogenetically related large viruses. [4] In colloquial speech, APMV is more commonly referred to as just "mimivirus".

The Mimivirus is a giant virus that infects amoebae and was long considered to be a bacterium due to its size. The viral particles are composed of a protein capsid of ~500 nm in diameter, which is enclosed in a polysaccharide layer in which ~120–140 ...

Apr 1, 2017 · The accidental discovery of the giant virus of amoeba — Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus (APMV; more commonly known as mimivirus) — in 2003 changed the field of virology.

Mimivirus is the largest and most complex virus known. Is it an evolutionary bridge between nonliving viruses and living organisms, or is it just an anomaly? Viruses are small and fairly simple....

Mimiviridae is a family of viruses. Amoeba and other protists serve as natural hosts. The family contains three subfamilies that contain nine genera. [1][2][3][4] Viruses in this family belong to the nucleocytoplasmic large DNA virus clade (NCLDV), also referred to as giant viruses.

Mimivirus, the prototypic member of the new family of Mimiviridae, is the largest virus known to date. Progress has been made recently in determining the three-dimensional structure of the 0.75-μm diameter virion using cryo-electron microscopy and atomic force microscopy.

Although mimivirus was isolated in the context of a pneumonia epidemic and initially thought to be an emerging human pathogen based on positive serology, subsequent more specific PCR-based studies failed to detect mimivirus in large numbers of pneumonia patients.

Sep 29, 2015 · ‘Giant virus’, defined as those exhibiting viral particles easily visible by light microscopy (i.e. smallest dimension >0.3 μm), now encompass four distinct families: the …

Postgenomic studies have now started in various laboratories, slowly shedding some light on the physiology of the largest and most complex virus isolated to date. This chapter summarizes our present knowledge on Mimivirus.

The infection cycles of giant viruses of amoebae involve virus entry by amoebal phagocytosis and replication in viral factories. In addition, mimiviruses are infected by virophages, defend against them through the mimivirus virophage resistance element (MIMIVIRE) system and have a …