Viruses WERE Odd Little Things...

Awww did my title make you feel all warm and gooey inside but also made you want to read more? I know, I know. It's ok, it's ok. I understand! You ready? Off we go with some blogging!

Ok so once again viruses  have come to mind-blow us all. As we know, there is a huge debate on whether or not viruses are alive because they only contain the necessary components to reproduce, and can only do cell by invading another cell. Now viruses are generally tiny little guys, that will multiply and mess some stuff up. Please note how I said they are little things. Most viruses are much smaller than their host cells and almost fully rely on processes in the host cell to reproduce. Along came these viruses, as explained by this article, and they just kind of threw all of this previous knowledge to the wind! These things are huge! They also come chock full of lots of DNA which encodes for a bunch of proteins. One great example would be Cafeteria roenbergensis. Oh my gosh perfect time to make a joke about it being cafeteria and eating a lot so that's why it's big... But I won't. Oooh! Even better I can reference Urma!! Yeah I like that better!

Look at that an artist's rendition! I'll even give you an actual picture! Lucky you!!

Those lovely pictures were pictures of Cafeteria roenbergensis. Scientists nicknamed them CroV. Based on their size I think it's obvious what I would nickname them... So CroV is the marine largest virus known to man at the moment! It is even bigger than some bacteria! CroV has a genome of 730,000 base pairs, about 544 predicted genes, and about 22 of these genes codes for tRNA's. CroV also does something special because it takes care of its DNA just like our cells do. Many smaller viruses do not take care of their DNA in the least bit, and often exploit the mutations which occur. CroV takes care of its DNA, just like we do! Its genome encodes for DNA repair enzymes, which actively repair the virus's DNA. Scientists believe that the large size is an advantage because amoebae eat the virus and then it gets to work!
CroV falls into a class of viruses called "mimiviruses" or "giant-viruses". French scientists gave the name mimivirus because they thought the viruses were mimicking microbes. As time has gone on, scientists are finding more and more of these mimviruses all around the world, and the ocean is filled with them!