Nano-fibers produced by viral infection of amoeba visualized by atomic force microscopy

In the course of an atomic force microscopy investigation of mimivirus, we observed that disrupted virions released masses of fibers that were several hundreds of nanometers in length and that could not be explained as nucleic acid or polysaccharide. The fibers exhibited a strong 7 nm periodicity along their lengths. They existed singly, and also as ribbons, cables, and in multi stranded coils. In the aggregate structures, the periodic bands of...