dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaGene & Genome Duplication in Acanthamoeba Polyphaga Mimivirus
| Authors | Karsten Suhre |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | q-bio/0505049 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0505049 |
Abstract
Gene duplication is key to molecular evolution in all three domains of life and may be the first step in the emergence of new gene function. It is a well recognized feature in large DNA viruses, but has not been studied extensively in the largest known virus to date, the recently discovered Acanthamoeba Polyphaga Mimivirus. Here we present a systematic analysis of gene and genome duplication events in the Mimivirus genome. We find that one third of the Mimivirus genes are related to at least one other gene in the Mimivirus genome, either through a large segmental genome duplication event that occurred in the more remote past, either through more recent gene duplication events, which often occur in tandem. This shows that gene and genome duplication played a major role in shaping the Mimivirus genome. Using multiple alignments together with remote homology detection methods based on Hidden Markov Model comparison, we assign putative functions to some of the paralogous gene families. We suggest that a large part of the duplicated Mimivirus gene families are likely to interfere with important host cell processes, such as transcription control, protein degradation, and cell regulatory processes. Our findings support the view that large DNA viruses are complex evolving organisms, possibly deeply rooted within the tree of life, and oppose the paradigm that viral evolution is dominated by lateral gene acquisition, at least in what concerns large DNA viruses.
{
"annotation_id": "a4cb85e6-b9de-4cf9-9a90-256eb900d591",
"date_created": "2026-03-02T18:01:32.168000Z",
"date_modified": "2026-03-02T18:01:32.168000Z",
"file_hash": "c50b3dd3cd1a2e4c5cea7c37cc6b37b8cd792d2e5a359d24df572f0abe1a66af",
"private": false,
"record": {
"abstract": "Gene duplication is key to molecular evolution in all three domains of life\nand may be the first step in the emergence of new gene function. It is a well\nrecognized feature in large DNA viruses, but has not been studied extensively\nin the largest known virus to date, the recently discovered Acanthamoeba\nPolyphaga Mimivirus. Here we present a systematic analysis of gene and genome\nduplication events in the Mimivirus genome. We find that one third of the\nMimivirus genes are related to at least one other gene in the Mimivirus genome,\neither through a large segmental genome duplication event that occurred in the\nmore remote past, either through more recent gene duplication events, which\noften occur in tandem. This shows that gene and genome duplication played a\nmajor role in shaping the Mimivirus genome. Using multiple alignments together\nwith remote homology detection methods based on Hidden Markov Model comparison,\nwe assign putative functions to some of the paralogous gene families. We\nsuggest that a large part of the duplicated Mimivirus gene families are likely\nto interfere with important host cell processes, such as transcription control,\nprotein degradation, and cell regulatory processes. Our findings support the\nview that large DNA viruses are complex evolving organisms, possibly deeply\nrooted within the tree of life, and oppose the paradigm that viral evolution is\ndominated by lateral gene acquisition, at least in what concerns large DNA\nviruses.",
"arxiv_id": "q-bio/0505049",
"authors": [
"Karsten Suhre"
],
"categories": [
"q-bio.GN"
],
"title": "Gene \u0026 Genome Duplication in Acanthamoeba Polyphaga Mimivirus",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/q-bio/0505049"
},
"schema_id": "dorsal/arxiv",
"source": {
"execution_id": "e037ef7a-f159-46a8-a5e5-5478657cf4a1",
"id": "arXiv Dataset IDs",
"type": "Model",
"variant": "snapshot-2026-03-01",
"version": "0.1.0"
},
"user_id": 1000002
}