Size matters for these amoeba viruses

A big deal

Being big, like an elephant or a rhinoceros, has a significant advantage — no predator would dare tackle such a large animal! However, some viruses, like the one that infects the single-celled amoeba, are big for a different reason — to sneak into its host, the amoeba.

In a new study, researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay have found a relationship between the number of copies of a particular set of genes and the size of the amoeba viruses that help these viruses gain easy entry into their host.

In this study, published in the journal Virus Evolution, researchers elucidate how the amoeba virus increases its size by using a set of essential genes called RDCPs (repeat domain-containing proteins) to expand its genome length and to infect the host once inside the amoeba cell.