Hepatitis B is the smallest DNA virus to infect humans. Russian Academy of Sciences academician, virologist Sergey Netesov, head of the laboratory of bionanotechnology, microbiology and virology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences of Novosibirsk State University, told socialbites.ca that there are 3200 nucleotides in its genome.
“The largest genomes are pandoravirus and mimivirus. But the truth is, they don’t affect a person. These are viruses found in amoebae. And the largest of the human viruses available are herpes viruses. They have a genome of about 250,000 nucleotides,” Netesov said.
According to the virologist, the number of nucleotides in the genome of pandoraviruses can reach 2.5 million.
“E. coli bacteria (E. coli. – Ed.) also has about 2.5 million. That is, the genome of these large viruses is comparable in size to the genomes of the simplest bacteria,” said the expert.
Read more about the world’s deadliest, cunning, rapidly mutating and beneficial viruses report Netesov “socialbites.ca”.
Formerly a doctor listed infectious diseases that can be transmitted at school.