Scientists found new viruses that flourish throughout sunlit oceans from pole to pole, infecting plankton. According to Live Science, these previously unseen viruses have been named "mirusviruses," which translates as 'strange' in Latin.
Researchers have determined that these microbes are part of the Duplodnaviria virus family, related to herpesviruses infecting animals and humans. However, these new viruses are a hybrid of two vastly different viral lineages, sharing a significant number of genes with the giant Varidnaviria virus group.
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Finding the Chimeric Mirusviruses
Tom Delmont, a researcher at the French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS), said in the press release that the newly discovered viruses are an incredibly unusual group. They are considered chimeric because they are a mix of two different virus groups: herpesviruses and giant viruses. The herpesvirus is based on particle genes, while the giant virus is based on many more genes.
The study, titled "Mirusviruses Link Herpesviruses to Giant Viruses" published in the journal Nature, shows how little knowledge there is about the viruses present in Earth's oceans.
So, the team examined data from the Tara Ocean expedition, which collected thousands of ocean water samples containing viruses, algae, and plankton. The researchers searched for evolutionary clues in millions of microbes' genes.
Delmont compared the process of searching for the viruses to surveying a vast area of sand with a metal detector, looking for a treasure. Mirusviruses, a novel family of double-stranded DNA viruses discovered in the sunlight, surface waters of the arctic, temperate, and tropical seas.
According to the National Ocean Service, these viruses attack plankton, which are small creatures that travel on ocean currents and may cause stunning blooms observable from space.
Mirusviruses may assist in controlling the activity of microorganisms and the circulation of carbon and nutrients in the ocean by invading the cells of plankton. Delmont stated that viruses are an intrinsic part of the plankton ecosystem on the ocean's surface, which destroys cells regularly, leading to the release of nutrients and particles that other cells can use to maintain their health and activity.
Mirusviruses Reveal Diversity of Ocean Ecosystem and Shed Light on Herpes Origins
The discovery of these new viruses will improve our understanding of ocean biodiversity and the significance of viruses in these ecosystems, World Today News reported.
Delmont noted that viruses were only typically seen as disease-causing agents, but they are a natural and beneficial presence in the oceans, much like gut microbiota. By infecting cells, viruses destroy them and release nutrients back into the ecosystem, which promotes the renewal of plankton activity.
Furthermore, these viruses have an interesting evolutionary history because their genome's unique composition suggests that they are distant cousins of herpes viruses, which are widespread in animals and infect over half of the world's human population but are absent in marine single-celled organisms.
Delmont explains that this mystery may be solved by considering the mirusviruses, which might provide insight into the oceanic ancestor of herpes, which infected single-celled organisms in the ocean millions of years ago before specializing in animal infection.
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