Mimivirus

The Mimivirus is the largest so far discovered viruses. It affects amoebae and brings it with a diameter of 400 nm, the size of a small bacterium.

It was in 1992 when research on legionellosis in an industrial cooling tower in Bradford (England) discovered where it multiplies in the amoeba Acanthamoeba polyphaga. In 2003 it was identified at the Université de la Méditerranée in Marseille by a working group led by Didier Raoult. Because of its size and its external resemblance to certain bacteria ( cocci ), it was considered initially for a Gram-positive bacterium and named it Bradfordcoccus. When they realized the mistake, they named the newly discovered virus Mimicking virus, deceptive virus, and finally short Mimivirus.

In October 2004, the structure of its genome in the journal Science was published. His DNA is 800 nm long, has about 1.2 million base pairs and 1260 genes with a share of only ten percent junk DNA. In the analysis we came across genes that were previously known only from cellular organisms.

Due to the exceptionally complex genetic makeup of the virus arises for some researchers question the new, where the boundary between animate and inanimate nature is proceeding, and is therefore to be defined as " living beings ".