Yaravirus is an

amoebic An amoeba (; less commonly spelled ameba or amœba; plural ''am(o)ebas'' or ''am(o)ebae'' ), often called an amoeboid, is a type of Cell (biology), cell or unicellular organism with the ability to alter its shape, primarily by extending and ret ...

virus A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses infect all life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. Since Dmitri Ivanovsky's 1 ...

(a virus that reproduces in amoeba) tentatively placed in

phylum In biology, a phylum (; plural: phyla) is a level of classification or taxonomic rank below kingdom and above class. Traditionally, in botany the term division has been used instead of phylum, although the International Code of Nomenclature f ...

Nucleocytoviricota ''Nucleocytoviricota'' is a phylum of viruses. Members of the phylum are also known as the nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDV), which serves as the basis of the name of the phylum with the suffix - for virus phylum. These viruses are refe ...

, discovered in the waters of

Lake Pampulha __NOTOC__ Lake Pampulha (Portuguese: Lagoa da Pampulha, ) is an artificial lake located in Pampulha, Belo Horizonte, Brazil. It is also the name of an administrative region (''região administrativa'') of Belo Horizonte, and the name of one of ...

Minas Gerais Minas Gerais () is a state in Southeastern Brazil. It ranks as the second most populous, the third by gross domestic product (GDP), and the fourth largest by area in the country. The state's capital and largest city, Belo Horizonte (literally ...

Brazil Brazil ( pt, Brasil; ), officially the Federative Republic of Brazil (Portuguese: ), is the largest country in both South America and Latin America. At and with over 217 million people, Brazil is the world's fifth-largest country by area ...

, in 2020. The virus was found to be significantly smaller than any known amoebic virus, and is notable in that 90% of its genome appears to have no

homology Homology may refer to: Sciences Biology *Homology (biology), any characteristic of biological organisms that is derived from a common ancestor * Sequence homology, biological homology between DNA, RNA, or protein sequences *Homologous chrom ...

to previously sequenced

amino acids Amino acids are organic compounds that contain both amino and carboxylic acid functional groups. Although hundreds of amino acids exist in nature, by far the most important are the alpha-amino acids, which comprise proteins. Only 22 alpha am ...

in other organisms. The organism was named after the Brazilian mythological figure, Iara. One author described the virus as one that "simply makes no sense", and as "an extreme example", noting that "of Yaravirus' 74 genes, 68 are unlike any ever found in any virus". With respect to efforts by scientists to develop a megataxonomy of viruses, Yaravirus, was described as "lonely and unclassifiable". Another analysis describes the virus as "either highly reduced and divergent NCLDVs or, more probably, the first non-NCLDV isolated from ''

Acanthamoeba ''Acanthamoeba'' is a genus of amoeboid, amoebae that are commonly recovered from soil, fresh water, and other habitat (ecology), habitats. ''Acanthamoeba'' has two evolutive forms, the metabolically active trophozoite and a dormant, stress-resi ...

'' species", also noting "an ATPase most similar to the

mimivirus ''Mimivirus'' is a genus of giant viruses, in the family ''Mimiviridae''. Amoeba serve as their natural hosts. This genus contains a single identified species named ''Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus'' (APMV). It also refers to a group of phylo ...

homologue" and a major

capsid protein A capsid is the protein shell of a virus, enclosing its genetic material. It consists of several oligomeric (repeating) structural subunits made of protein called protomers. The observable 3-dimensional morphological subunits, which may or may ...

phylogeny that is "not compatible with that of the ATPase phylogeny", suggesting that the virus originated through a

horizontal gene transfer Horizontal gene transfer (HGT) or lateral gene transfer (LGT) is the movement of genetic material between Unicellular organism, unicellular and/or multicellular organisms other than by the ("vertical") transmission of DNA from parent to offsprin ...

References

Unaccepted virus taxa Biota of Brazil {{virus-stub

Further reading

References