Diameter of icosahedral caspid

Range ~120 nm
Organism Micromonas pusilla virus MPv
Reference Weynberg KD, Allen MJ, Wilson WH. Marine Prasinoviruses and Their Tiny Plankton Hosts: A Review. Viruses. 2017 Mar 15 9(3). pii: E43. doi: 10.3390/v9030043. p.5 2nd paragraphPubMed ID28294997
Method Transmission electron microscopy (TEM)
Comments P.5 2nd paragraph: "The first report of phycodnavirus isolations was from the prasinophyte Micromonas pusilla [ref 47]. These workers described the relatively easy method of isolating the virus from seawater and subsequent lysis of unialgal cultures. However, the results of this work were largely ignored at the time and no major investigations began until the high abundance of viruses in the marine environment was described by Bergh et al. in 1989 [ref 1]. Until recently, Micromonas-specific viruses were the only viruses that infect prasinophytes to be described in any detail. Similar to other characterised prasinoviruses, transmission electron microscopy (TEM) reveals MpVs have icosahedral caspids with diameters ~120 nm consisting of electron-dense cores (Figure 1A,B). Most subsequent studies following the initial discovery of MpVs have largely investigated the ecological roles of these viruses and the genetic diversity they harbour [refs 48-53]. It has been shown that M. pusilla-specific dsDNA viruses can lyse up to 25% of their host population on a daily basis [ref 54]. The host species survives such high mortality rates through high growth rates and a high host diversity [ref 8]."
Entered by Uri M
ID 113512