Organic Lake Explained
Organic Lake is a lake in the Vestfold Hills in eastern Antarctica. It was formed 6,000 years ago when sea levels were higher; it is isolated, rather shallow, meromictic, a few hundred meters in diameter and has extremely salty water. It has the highest recorded concentration of dimethyl sulfide in any natural body of water.[1] [2]
In 2011, a new species of virophage (a satellite virus that impairs the ability of its co-infective host virus to replicate) was discovered in Organic Lake, the Organic Lake virophage. It is a parasite of 'Organic Lake phycodnavirus',[1] a large virus that infects algae and belongs to the nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDV), but in fact may rather be a member of an extended family Mimiviridae (aka Megaviridae) than of the family Phycodnaviridae.[3] [4] [5] [6]
Notes and References
- Web site: 'Virus-eater' discovered in Antarctic lake. 28 March 2011. Nature News.
- 38. 3. 409–417. Franzmann. PD. PP Deprez . HR Burton . J van den Hoff . amp . Limnology of Organic Lake, Antarctica, a meromictic lake that contains high concentrations of dimethyl sulfide. Marine and Freshwater Research. 1987-01-01. 10.1071/MF9870409.
- Koonin . Eugene V. . Krupovic . Mart . Yutin . Natalya . amp . Evolution of double-stranded DNA viruses of eukaryotes: from bacteriophages to transposons to giant viruses . Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences . April 2015 . 1341 . 1 . 10–24 . 10.1111/nyas.12728. 4405056 . 25727355 . 2015NYASA1341...10K . (Figure 3)
- Maruyama . Fumito . Ueki . Shoko . amp . Evolution and phylogeny of large DNA viruses, Mimiviridae and Phycodnaviridae including newly characterized Heterosigma akashiwo virus . Frontiers in Microbiology . 30 November 2016 . 7 . 1942 . 10.3389/fmicb.2016.01942. 5127864 . 27965659 . free .
- Zhang . Weijia . Zhou . Jinglie . Liu . Taigang . Yu . Yongxin . Pan . Yingjie . Yan . Shuling . Wang . Yongjie . amp . Four novel algal virus genomes discovered from Yellowstone Lake metagenomes . Scientific Reports . 13 October 2015 . 5 . 1 . 15131 . 10.1038/srep15131. 4602308 . 26459929 . 2015NatSR...515131Z .
- Schulz . Frederik . Yutin . Natalya . Ivanova . Natalia N. . Ortega . Davi R. . Lee . Tae Kwon . Vierheilig . Julia . Daims . Holger . Horn . Matthias . Wagner . Michael . Jensen . Grant J. . Kyrpides . Nikos C. . Koonin . Eugene V. . Woyke . Tanja . amp . Giant viruses with an expanded complement of translation system components . Science . 6 April 2017 . 356 . 6333 . 82–85 . 10.1126/science.aal4657 . 28386012. 2017Sci...356...82S . free . (especially Fig. 2)
