Gaze WH, Morgan G, Zhang L, Wellington EMH.
Mimivirus-like particles in acanthamoebae from sewage sludge [letter]. Emerg Infect Dis [serial on the Internet]. 2011 Jun [date cited].
http://www.cdc.gov/EID/content/17/6/1127.htm
DOI: 10.3201/eid1706.101282
To the Editor: Mimivirus is a giant, double-stranded DNA virus. Its 650-nm diameter and 1.2-Mb genome make it the largest known virus (1). In 2003, mimivirus was isolated from a water cooling tower in Bradford, UK, after a pneumonia outbreak and was reported to infect Acanthamoeba polyphaga amebae (2). Subsequently, a small number of additional isolates have been reported (3).
Mimivirus has been associated with pneumonia, and this association was strengthened after antibodies to mimivirus were found in serum samples from patients with community- and hospital-acquired pneumonia and after mimivirus DNA was found in bronchoalveolar lavage specimens (4). More direct evidence of pathogenicity was illustrated when a pneumonia-like disease developed in a laboratory technician who worked with mimivirus and showed seroconversion to 23 mimivirus-specific proteins (5).
We report finding mimivirus-like particles during our molecular study of Acanthamoeba spp. abundance and diversity in final-stage conventionally treated sewage sludge from a wastewater treatment plant in the West Midlands, UK.
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Although we did not confirm the identity of the mimivirus-like particles by molecular methods or electron microscopy, the nature of the light micrographs enabled close examination of the particles. These particles demonstrated close similarity to mimivirus in size and shape as indicated by the lattice arrangement in which 1 particle was surrounded by 6 others, as seen previously (10).
Our study illustrates that acanthamoebae that survive sewage treatment can harbor mimivirus-like particles, which could be disseminated to agricultural land and surface waters....
