A study conducted in Yellowstone National Park suggests that giant viruses played a significant role in the early development of life on Earth, providing insights into ancient virus evolution and early steps in evolution.
In Yellowstone National Park , samples from algal mats and nearby soil and rocks yielded DNA from thousands of new giant viruses .The seething, microbe-rich hot springs of Yellowstone National Park are a model of the conditions in which life emerged on early Earth, many researchers think. Now, a study of one Yellowstone hot spring suggests so-called “ giant viruses ” played a key role in those primordial ecosystems and may have helped drive early steps in evolution.
From that harvest, postdoc Felipe Benites culled all known sequences from archaea, algae, and bacteria. That left him with DNA from about 3700 potential viruses; surprisingly, almost two-thirds of them were giant viruses. Using further computer analysis, Benite and his colleagues were able to piece together most of the genomes of about 25 different types of viruses. They think these reproduce by infecting the red algae.
For one, viral proteins bore the hallmarks of a longtime hot spring dweller: They tended to have shorter loops and be more tightly packed than proteins adapted to milder conditions. Moreover, their DNA was “biased” to have the same three-base codes that other hot spring inhabitants have. And when the researchers reconstructed a viral family tree based on the newly sequenced viruses and other viral genes, they concluded that the hot spring viruses branched off very early in viral history.
They may also help solve an evolutionary puzzle. Many hot spring inhabitants borrowed genes from one another to cope with the heat and toxins such as arsenic, but exactly how more complex organisms such as algae did that is “elusive,” says Weber, who has studied how red algae swap genes for a decade. Viruses may have been the intermediaries, he and others think, readily taking on genes from bacteria and archaea and passing them on to the eukaryotes they infect.
Yellowstone National Park Giant Viruses Early Evolution Ancient Virus Evolution Primordial Ecosystems
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