Giant virus-related sequences in the 5300-year-old Ötzi mummy metagenome

Giant viruses have brought new perspectives on the virosphere. They have been increasingly described in humans, including in several metagenomic studies. Here, we searched into the metagenome of the 5300-year-old Otzi mummy for the presence of giant virus-related sequences using MG-Digger pipeline. We found 19 reads (0.00006% of the total read number) that best matched (mean ± standard deviation (range) for e-values of 5.0E-6 ± 1.4E-6 (6.0E-5–4.0E-10) and for amino acid identity of 69.9 ± 8.7% (46.4–84.9%) and most significantly with sequences from various giant viruses, including mostly mimiviruses. This expands current knowledge on the ubiquity and relationship with humans of giant viruses.