BACKGROUND The giant amoebal viruses of Mimivirus and Marseillevirus are large DNA viruses and have been documented in water, soil, and sewage samples. The trend of discovering these giant amoebal viruses has been increasing throughout Asia with Japan, India, and Saudi Arabia being the latest countries to document the presence of these viruses. To date, there have been no reports of large amoebal viruses being isolated in South East Asia. OBJECTIVE In this study, we aim to discover these viruses from soil samples in an aboriginal village (Serendah village) in Peninsular -Malaysia. METHOD AND RESULTS We successfully detected and isolated both Mimivirus-like and Marseillevirus-like viruses using Acanthamoeba castellanii. Phylogeny analysis identified them as Mimivirus and Marseillevirus, respectively. CONCLUSION The ubiquitous nature of both Mimivirus and Marseillevirus is further confirmed in our study as they are detected in higher quantity in soil that is near to water vicinities in an aboriginal village in Peninsular Malaysia. However, this study is limited by our inability to investigate the impact of Mimivirus and Marseillevirus on the aboriginal villagers. More studies on the potential impact of these viruses on human health, especially on the aborigines, are warranted.

中文翻译：

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从马来西亚半岛一个原住民（Orang asli）村的土壤样本中分离和定量了类似Mimivirus和Marseillevirus的病毒。

背景技术模仿病毒和马赛病毒的巨大变形虫病毒是大的DNA病毒，并已在水，土壤和污水样本中得到记录。在整个亚洲，发现这些巨型变形虫病毒的趋势一直在增加，日本，印度和沙特阿拉伯是最新发现这些病毒存在的国家。迄今为止，还没有关于在东南亚分离出大变形虫病毒的报道。目的在本研究中，我们旨在从马来西亚半岛的一个原住民村庄（Serendah村庄）的土壤样本中发现这些病毒。方法和结果我们成功地使用卡氏棘阿米巴（Acanthamoeba castellanii）成功检测并分离出了类似Mimivirus和Marseillevirus的病毒。系统发育分析确定它们分别为拟病毒和马赛病毒。结论我们的研究进一步证实了米氏病毒和马赛病毒的普遍存在，因为在马来西亚半岛一个原住民村庄附近的水源附近的土壤中它们的含量更高。但是，这项研究受到我们无法调查拟病毒和马赛病毒对原住民村民影响的限制。有必要对这些病毒对人类健康，特别是对土著居民的潜在影响进行更多研究。