Lowest estimate of total genome size for largest known viral genome (as of 7/2013)

Value 2.77 Mb
Organism Virus Pandoravirus salinus
Reference Philippe N et al., Pandoraviruses: amoeba viruses with genomes up to 2.5 Mb reaching that of parasitic eukaryotes. Science. 2013 Jul 19 341(6143):281-6. doi: 10.1126/science.1239181. p.282 right column top paragraphPubMed ID23869018
Method P.282 middle column bottom paragraph: "[Researchers] sequenced the genome of both parasites [Pandoravirus salinus and Pandoravirus dulcis], starting from DNA prepared from purified particles. For P. salinus, a 2,473,870–base pair (bp) sequence was assembled as a single contig through a combination of Illumina, 454-Roche, and PacBio approaches. The sequence coverage (11,164, 67, and 41 for the above platforms, respectively) was quite uniform, except for 50 kb at the 3' extremity of the contig where it was 10 times as high, hinting at the presence of unresolved terminal repeats. Using a combination of polymerase chain reaction (PCR) primers targeting sequences expected to arise from tandem or head-to-tail repetitions, [researchers] found evidence of at least six additional tandem terminal copies, raising the lowest estimate of the P. salinus total genome size to 2.77Mb."
Entered by Uri M
ID 109556