Biggest-ever virus revived from Stone Age permafrost
Source: newscientist.com
As if there weren’t enough problems with thawing tundra. A virus of unprecedented size has been isolated from Russian permafrost 30,000 years old and reactivated.Dubbed a pithovirus after the Greek pithos, meaning a large earthenware jar like an amphora, the virus infects amoebas but does not appear to harm human or mouse cells.Even so, now that this virus has been revived from the permafrost, so too could potentially harmful pathogens, possibly including viruses humans have never encountered before, the researchers say."There’s good reason to think there could be pathogenic viruses in there too," says Chantal Abergel of Aix-Marseille University in Marseille, France, and co-leader of the team that discovered the virus.Mining risk"Thirty percent of the world’s oil reserves are thought to be hidden under the permafrost, along with gold and other key minerals, so exploration is bound to increase," says Jean-Michel Claverie, co-leader of the team. "So we must be careful to take precautions when prospecting – if people become sick with strange symptoms, it might be wise to quarantine and clear them of dangerous new infections before sending them back," he says.The pithovirus itself is very different from any known virus. At 1.5 micrometres long by 0.5 micrometres wide, it is around 30 per cent bigger than what had been the largest known virus – the pandoravirus, also found by Claverie’s team.Yet despite being physically larger, the pithovirus has only a fifth as many genes as the 2500 in the pandoravirus. The two giant viruses share just five genes.Reviving the pithovirus needed no sophisticated techniques. Rather, Claverie and Abergel "baited" the peat-like permafrost sample with amoebas. "We used the amoebas to draw out the virus, as we know these giant viruses tend to infect amoebas," says Claverie.[...]Read the full article at: newscientist.com
