• Question: Have you heard of giant virus? are they more dangerous to humans than normal viruses

    Asked by anon-186026 to Verity, Trystan, Raquel, Danny, Catherine, Andy on 12 Nov 2018.
    • Photo: Danny Ward

      Danny Ward answered on 12 Nov 2018: last edited 12 Nov 2018 2:48 pm

      We do have giant viruses. The biggest one is Megavirus chilensis. Its 440 nanometers in diameter and the largest amount of genetic information. While this may still sound tiny, its 4 times as big as the flu virus which is only 100 nanometers with much less genetic information.
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      Despite their size, it doesn’t make them more dangerous. Megavirus chilenis can’t even infect us. They instead infect microscopic amoeba found in soil and water habitats.

    • Photo: Verity Hill

      Verity Hill answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      One of the reasons that viruses stay small is so that they can replicate faster – they have less that they need to copy! Because they are always competing with each other, if one were to get a bit bigger, it would replicate more slowly and be outcompeted by the others. This is what keeps viruses small in humans, because this is the system that is set up in us.
      I would expect giant viruses in humans to not be any more dangerous than smaller ones. Lots of very small viruses do a lot of harm to us, for example norovirus, which gives you really bad food poisoning and is very infectious!

    • Photo: Trystan Leng

      Trystan Leng answered on 12 Nov 2018:

      I have! They are interesting because they challenge some of our long-held beliefs about viruses – they contain some genetic information that we previously thought only cellular organisms (which includes bacteria, plants, and animals) possessed!

      Despite their size, they are not any more dangerous than other viruses. How dangerous a virus is does not depend on its size.

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