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( Mimivirus)
Mimivirus is a viral genus containing a single identified species named Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus (APMV). In colloquial speech, APMV is more commonly referred to as just “mimivirus”. It has the largest capsid diameter of all known viruses, as well as a large and complex genome compared to other viruses. Though knowledge of the virus is relatively limited, the discovery of the virus excited many people due to the implications of its complex nature, with people hailing it as everything from a new domain of life to a missing link between viruses and bacteria. APMV was discovered serendipitously in 1992 within the amoeba Acanthamoeba polyphaga, after which it is named, during research into Legionellosis. The virus was observed in a gram stain and mistakenly thought to be a gram-positive bacterium. As a consequence it was named "Bradfordcoccus", after the district the amoeba was sourced from in Bradford, England. In 2003, researchers at the Université de la Méditerranée in Marseille, France published a paper in Science identifying the micro-organism as a virus.[1] Mimivirus may be a causative agent of some forms of pneumonia; however, this is a tentative proposal based solely on indirect evidence in the form of antibodies to the virus discovered in pneumonia patients.[2] Although the classification of mimivirus as a pathogen is tentative, evidence is accumulating that it can cause viral pneumonia.[3] It has not been placed into a viral family by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses but more members of the proposed family Mimiviridae are thought to exist based on metagenomic data.[4] It has however, been placed into Group I of the Baltimore classification system.
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