Sunday, June 14, 2020

Researchers Discover the Largest Virus in the Oceans Yet

What lurks in the depth of the still largely unknown oceans!



" ... At 875 kilobases, the so-called ChoanoVirus’s genome is impressive in size, and the proteins it codes for are particularly exciting to the researchers. Among hundreds of protein sequences, ... identified three for rhodopsins—light-processing receptors found in certain cellular membranes of many living organisms, including humans, who require rhodopsin in the retina for sight. The viral genome also codes for the components of a pathway that synthesizes a molecule called β-carotene along with the enzyme that processes it into retinal, the pigment that does the actual light sensing within the rhodopsin protein. By contrast, humans and indeed most eukaryotes make only part of the rhodopsin machinery and have to obtain β-carotene from external sources to make retinal. ...That some organisms use rhodopsins to generate chemical energy from light is not a new discovery. Decades ago, scientists reported that halophilic archaea make use of rhodopsins for just that. And in 2000, [researchers] ... described marine bacteria that also use rhodopsins to capture light energy. Since then, marine biologists have uncovered this form of metabolism in a wide range of microbial species in the ocean, ..."





Researchers Discover the Largest Virus in the Oceans Yet | The Scientist Magazine®

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