On episode #354 of the science show This Week in Virology, the esteemed doctors of TWiV review a new giant virus recovered from the Siberian permafrost, why influenza virus gain of function experiments are valuable, and feline immunodeficiency virus. You can find TWiV #354 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
In Carl Zimmer’s New York Times article describing the recovery of the giant virus Pithovirus sibericum from the Siberian permafrost, he used the words revive and resurrect. Can a virus be restored to life? The headline of the article read ‘Out of Siberian ice, a virus revived‘. Within the body of the article, Zimmer wrote …
A new virus called Pithovirus sibericum has been isolated from 30,000 year old Siberian permafrost. It is the oldest DNA virus of eukaryotes ever isolated, showing that viruses can retain infectivity in nature for very long periods of time. Pithovirus was isolated by inoculating cultures of the amoeba Acanthamoeba castellani with samples taken in the year 2000 from 30 meters below …
Pithovirus: Bigger than Pandoravirus with a smaller genome Read More »
