Marseilleviridae is a family of large double-stranded DNA viruses that is currently divided into five subgroups, lineages A-E. Hokutovirus and kashiwazakivirus, both of which belong to lineage B, have been reported to induce host acanthamoeba cells to form aggregations called "bunches". This putatively results in increased opportunities to infect acanthamoeba cells, in contrast to lineage A, which has been reported to not form "bunches". In the present study, we isolated 14 virus strains of the family Marseilleviridae from several Japanese water samples, 11 of which were identified as lineage B viruses. All 11 lineage B strains caused infected amoeba cells to form bunches. We then investigated the involvement of monosaccharides in bunch formation by amoeba cells infected with hokutovirus. Galactose inhibited bunch formation, thereby allowing amoeba cells to delay the process, whereas mannose and glucose did not. A kinetic image analysis of hokutovirus-infected amoeba cells confirmed the inhibition of bunch formation by galactose. The number of hokutovirus-infected amoeba cells increased more rapidly than that of tokyovirus-infected cells, which belongs to lineage A. This result suggests that bunch formation by infected amoeba cells is advantageous for lineage B viruses.

中文翻译：

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马赛病毒科 B 谱系多样性和半乳糖抑制的束形成。

马赛病毒科是一个大型双链 DNA 病毒家族，目前分为五个亚群，即谱系 AE。据报道，Hokutovirus 和 kashiwazakivirus 都属于 B 系，它们诱导宿主棘阿米巴细胞形成称为“束”的聚集体。与据报道不会形成“束”的谱系 A 相比，这可能会增加感染棘阿米巴细胞的机会。在本研究中，我们从几个日本水样中分离出 14 种马赛病毒科病毒株，其中 11 种被鉴定为 B 系病毒。所有 11 个谱系 B 菌株都导致受感染的变形虫细胞形成束。然后，我们研究了单糖在感染北斗病毒的阿米巴细胞形成簇中的作用。半乳糖抑制束形成，从而允许变形虫细胞延迟该过程，而甘露糖和葡萄糖则没有。hokutovirus 感染的变形虫细胞的动力学图像分析证实了半乳糖对束形成的抑制。与东京病毒感染的细胞相比，北斗病毒感染的阿米巴细胞的数量增加得更快，属于谱系 A。该结果表明，感染的阿米巴细胞形成簇对谱系 B 病毒是有利的。