Tailed giant Tupanvirus possesses the most complete translational apparatus of the known virosphere

Jonatas Abrahao (1, 2) , Lorena Silva (2) , Ludmila Santos Silva (2) , Jacques Yaacoub Bou Khalil (1) , Rodrigo Rodrigues (3) , Thalita Arantes (2) , Felipe Assis (2) , Paulo Boratto (2) , Miguel Andrade (4) , Erna Geessien Kroon (5) , Bergmann Ribeiro (6) , Ivan Bergier , Herve Seligmann (1) , Eric Ghigo , Philippe Colson (1) , Anthony Levasseur (1) , Guido Kroemer (7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13) , Didier Raoult (1) , Bernard La Scola (1)

1 MEPHI - Microbes évolution phylogénie et infections
2 UFMG - Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais = Federal University of Minas Gerais [Belo Horizonte, Brazil]
3 INESC-ID - Instituto de Engenharia de Sistemas e Computadores Investigação e Desenvolvimento em Lisboa
4 UnB - Universidade de Brasilia [Brasília]
5 Laboratório de Vírus
6 Department of Cell Biology
7 UPD5 - Université Paris Descartes - Paris 5
8 Karolinska Institutet [Stockholm]
9 IGR - Institut Gustave Roussy
10 CRC - Centre de Recherche des Cordeliers
11 UPMC - Université Pierre et Marie Curie - Paris 6
12 Pôle de biologie
13 Plateforme de métabolomique

Here we report the discovery of two Tupanvirus strains, the longest tailed Mimiviridae members isolated in amoebae. Their genomes are 1.44-1.51 Mb linear double-strand DNA coding for 1276-1425 predicted proteins. Tupanviruses share the same ancestors with mimivirus lineages and these giant viruses present the largest translational apparatus within the known virosphere, with up to 70 tRNA, 20 aaRS, 11 factors for all translation steps, and factors related to tRNA/mRNA maturation and ribosome protein modification. Moreover, two sequences with significant similarity to intronic regions of 18 S rRNA genes are encoded by the tupanviruses and highly expressed. In this translation-associated gene set, only the ribosome is lacking. At high multiplicity of infections, tupanvirus is also cytotoxic and causes a severe shutdown of ribosomal RNA and a progressive degradation of the nucleus in host and non-host cells. The analysis of tupanviruses constitutes a new step toward understanding the evolution of giant viruses.

Domaines: Virologie

Jonatas Abrahao, Lorena Silva, Ludmila Santos Silva, Jacques Yaacoub Bou Khalil, Rodrigo Rodrigues, et al.. Tailed giant Tupanvirus possesses the most complete translational apparatus of the known virosphere. Nature Communications, 2018, 9, pp.749. ⟨10.1038/s41467-018-03168-1⟩. ⟨hal-01780642⟩