ArticleNature2016
MIMIVIRE is a defence system in mimivirus that confers resistance to virophage.
Article in Nature, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 57 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
57 citing papers in PubMed, 108 citations in OpenAlex.
- Microalga-virus-virophage coculture reveals co-infection of multi-virophages with a giant virus.Archives of virology · 2026Article
- Conserved tripartite tail proteins mediate virophage-host interactions throughJournal of virology · 2025Article
- Usurpativirus massiliensis, a new giant virus related to clandestinovirus.Virology journal · 2025Article
- Novel High-Quality Amoeba Genomes Reveal Widespread Codon Usage Mismatch Between Giant Viruses and Their Hosts.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Virophages, Satellite Viruses, Virophage Replication and Its Effects and Virophage Defence Mechanisms for Giant Virus Hosts and Giant Virus Defence Systems against Virophages.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- A giant virus infecting the amoeboflagellate Naegleria.Nature communications · 2024Article
- Genetic manipulation of giant viruses and their host, Acanthamoeba castellanii.Nature protocols · 2024Review
- Diversity, Relationship, and Distribution of Virophages and Large Algal Viruses in Global Ocean Viromes.Viruses · 2023Article
- Clarifying CRISPR: Why Repeats Identified in the Human Genome Should Not Be Considered CRISPRs.The CRISPR journal · 2023Article
- Updated Virophage Taxonomy and Distinction from Polinton-like Viruses.Biomolecules · 2023Article
- Viral Complexity.Biomolecules · 2022Review
- Mimiviruses: Giant viruses with novel and intriguing features (Review).Molecular medicine reports · 2022Review
- Isolation and Identification of a Large Green Alga Virus (Journal of virology · 2022Article
- CRISPRs in the human genome are differentially expressed between malignant and normal adjacent to tumor tissue.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Incomplete tricarboxylic acid cycle and proton gradient in Pandoravirus massiliensis: is it still a virus?The ISME journal · 2022Article
- 'Cannibalism' of exogenous DNA sequences: The ancestral form of adaptive immunity which entails recognition of danger.Frontiers in immunology · 2022Review
- Morphological and Taxonomic Properties of the Newly IsolatedJournal of virology · 2021Article
- The Enhanced Immune Protection in Small AbaloneFrontiers in immunology · 2021Article
- Clandestinovirus: A Giant Virus With Chromatin Proteins and a Potential to Manipulate the Cell Cycle of Its HostFrontiers in microbiology · 2021Article
- The DNA methylation landscape of giant viruses.Nature communications · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
- Commented on by
Authors and funding
6 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Since their discovery, giant viruses have revealed several unique features that challenge the conventional definition of a virus, such as their large and complex genomes, their infection by virophages and their presence of transferable short element transpovirons. Here we investigate the sensitivity of mimivirus to virophage infection in a collection of 59 viral strains and demonstrate lineage specificity in the resistance of mimivirus to Zamilon, a unique virophage that can infect lineages B and C of mimivirus but not lineage A. We hypothesized that mimiviruses harbour a defence mechanism resembling the clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeat (CRISPR)-Cas system that is widely present in bacteria and archaea. We performed de novo sequencing of 45 new mimivirus strains and searched for sequences specific to Zamilon in a total of 60 mimivirus genomes. We found that lineage A strains are resistant to Zamilon and contain the insertion of a repeated Zamilon sequence within an operon, here named the 'mimivirus virophage resistance element' (MIMIVIRE). Further analyses of the surrounding sequences showed that this locus is reminiscent of a defence mechanism related to the CRISPR-Cas system. Silencing the repeated sequence and the MIMIVIRE genes restores mimivirus susceptibility to Zamilon. The MIMIVIRE proteins possess the typical functions (nuclease and helicase) involved in the degradation of foreign nucleic acids. The viral defence system, MIMIVIRE, represents a nucleic-acid-based immunity against virophage infection.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.