Medusavirus

See also: medusavirus

English

Etymology

From Ancient Greek Μέδουσα (Médousa, “Medusa”) +‎ virus. From Latin virus (“virus”). From being a virus which can turn amoeba into stone-like cysts. From Medusa, the Greek mythological figure which could petrify people with a glance.

Proper noun

Medusavirus

1. (virology) An informal genus of the informal family Medusaviridae, large DNA viruses that infect amoeba.
   • 2019 March 20, Sarah Zhang, “Beware the Medusavirus”, in The Atlantic:

     The newest giant virus is Medusavirus, so named because of the way it infects amoebas, single-celled organisms that commonly live in water.

   • 2019 October 24, German Andrés et al., “The cryo-EM structure of African swine fever virus unravels a unique architecture comprising two icosahedral protein capsids and two lipoprotein membranes”, in Journal of Biological Chemistry, →DOI:

     Many of the NCLDVs, including the phycodnavirus Paramecium bursaria Chlorella virus (PBCV-1), the iridovirus Chilo iridescent virus (CIV), the mimivirus Cafeteria roenbergensis virus (CroV), or the giant amoeba-infecting Faustovirus, Pacmanvirus, and Medusavirus, present large icosahedral capsids composed of trimers of a MCP that displays a double jelly-roll fold.

   • 2020 March 16, Issam Hasni et al., “Description of Virulent Factors and Horizontal Gene Transfers of Keratitis-Associated Amoeba Acanthamoeba Triangularis by Genome Analysis”, in Pathogens, →DOI:

     Furthermore, we identified 5 A. triangularis homologous sequences shared with Medusavirus, a giant virus that replicates on Acanthamoeba castellanii, which was isolated from hot spring water.

Usage notes

• Not accepted in ICTV 2019; does not appear in Viralzone as of June 8, 2020.

Hypernyms

• (genus): Virus, Medusaviridae - "family"

References

• Medusavirus on Wikipedia.Wikipedia