Rare Giant Viruses Found In New England Forest Is Not A Threat To Human, Expert Says

Experts discovered giant viruses lurking in the soils of a New England forest that possess characteristics that have never been observed in other viruses of similar size.

Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Germany, described the viruses as having tubular tentacles and star-like shells.

"I would bet that many of those, if not the majority, are completely new and first sightings of viruses that we have never seen before," Matthias Fischer, a virologist and co-anchor of the study, told Live Science.

Bizarre feature

In 2018, the scientists gathered soil samples from the Harvard Forest in Massachusetts, where giant viruses are known to thrive. However, the samples extracted from the dirt were unlike anything they had ever seen.

In the research posted to bioRxiv, researchers said it had tentacle-like 'electron-dense inner tube' appendages, 'icosahedral' protein shells structured like 20-sided dice,'star' designs, and other strange structures with unknown biological functions.

Attempts to study giant viruses in Harvard Forest have previously focused on their packed genomes, which can contain up to 2.5 million DNA base pairs.

Fischer's team concentrated on the shape of the bacteria, or "morphology," by scanning soil samples with a transmission electron microscope beam to create detailed images of the huge viruses and adjacent virus-like particles for their study.

One type of enormous virus they discovered resembled the elaborate, crystalline bottles used to hold perfume centuries ago, earning them the nickname 'Flacon.'

Another set is the 'Gorgon' giant viruses, which had eight to eleven tubular, tentacle-like appendages that were 500-650 nanometers long and 30-65 nanometers wide.

They hypothesize that these tentacles are empty and that one on each virus has been specially evolved for 'genome release,' which means that some of these tentacled tubes are designed to implant the virus's infectious genetic payload.

Read Also: Giant Viruses Found Infecting Microscopic Algae in a Rare Arctic Lake

Not a threat to human

The researchers stressed that the newly discovered giant viruses do not pose a threat to humans; thus, they play an important part in ecosystems.

Carbon cycling, which involves the transport of carbon between organisms, minerals, and the atmosphere, is aided by soil viruses in particular. They aid in the regulation of the quantity of microbes such as bacteria, which has a direct impact on carbon transport in the soil.

According to the study, giant viruses typically range in size from 0.2 to 1.5 micrometers and have sophisticated genomes that can carry up to 2.5 million DNA base pairs.

This is substantially larger than other viruses, such as influenza viruses, which have diameters ranging from 0.08 to 0.12 micrometers. So far, giant viruses have been shown to exclusively infect single-cell species such as amoebas rather than animals or humans. This type of virus has been discovered in ecosystems all around the world, including seas, Arctic lakes, and even melting permafrost.

Fischer performed the research because their precise function in these complicated wilderness dynamics is yet unknown.

"They're in water, in air, on your skin, in your guts - you just don't see them,' Fischer said, 'and they have very beneficial effects not just for ecology, but on the long term for evolution," he added, as quoted by Daily Mail.

Related Article: Arctic and Climate: Permafrost Sample Contains 4 Giant Viruses

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