The recent study, published Thursday in the journal Science, focused on viruses that include RNA, the molecular cousin of DNA. In human disease, RNA viruses abound; For example, both coronaviruses and influenza viruses are RNA-based. Scientists are currently learning about the different types of RNA viruses found in water.
“We are fairly sure that most RNA viruses in the ocean are infecting microbial eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and, to a lesser extent, invertebrates,” said co-first author Guillermo Dominguez-Huerta, who works in Viral Ecology. Was a postdoctoral scholar. At the time of study at The Ohio State University (OSU).
Fungi and protists, including algae and amoeba, are viral hosts that take up carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and therefore control how much carbon is stored in the ocean.
In an email to Live Science, Wilhelm said, “Given the amount of RNA virus particles, knowing they can accomplish this, this story continues to develop with regard to how energy and carbon move.” How important are viruses in the world.”
Dominguez-Huerta and his colleagues discovered more than 5,500 previously undiscovered RNA viruses in the world’s waters earlier this year.
The scientists evaluated 35,000 water samples collected by the Tara Ocean Association from 121 locations across five oceans. Plankton are microscopic organisms that currently move and may serve as hosts for RNA viruses that were abundant in these water samples.
“It’s the only… the coding sequence that is consistent across all RNA viruses,” said Dominguez-Huerta, who now works as a scientific advisor for Virosphaera; Nevertheless, the RdRp gene is not found in cells or other viruses.
According to the researchers, viral populations can be divided into four broad regions: arctic, Antarctic, temperate and tropical epipelagic (near the ocean surface), and temperate and tropical mesopelagic. The diversity of viruses is highest in the polar regions.
“Viruses don’t care how cold the water is when it comes to diversity,” said co-first author Ahmed Zayed, a research scientist in OSU’s Department of Microbiology. According to Zayed of Live Science, the discovery suggests that many viruses fight for the same host at the poles.
The researchers compared the genomes of RNA viruses with those of known hosts to the new virus and looked for unusual snippets of viral RNA in the host cell genome, where fragments of RNA can sometimes be left behind.
According to Dominguez-Huerta, the study also determined that 95 viruses carried “genes” from their host cells. These genes help the host in directing metabolic activities within the cell. According to the scientists, the discovery states that the virus interfered with its host’s metabolism in some way, which is likely to increase the generation of new viral particles.
After determining which hosts are most likely to infect ocean viruses, the researchers found that about 1,200 of them may be involved in carbon export.
According to the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute, the deeper these carbon stocks sink, the longer they will remain in the water before cycling back into the atmosphere, according to the current study of infection of marine organisms by RNA viruses.
Wilhelm said RNA viruses could potentially promote carbon flux by isolating their hosts and dumping stored carbon into the ocean.
