16 new giant viruses discovered in the forest floor
American researchers accidentally discovered 16 new giant viruses in the forest floor of Harvard. Some of them have the largest genomes ever described for viruses.
In a climate study, scientists were looking for bacteria to know how they were adapting to temperature rise. For their experiments, they suspended the microbial cells with a mild detergent solution. Then, they isolated the cells. Since giant viruses have similar sizes to bacteria, so they could also be identified in this way.
2,000 cells or particles were sequenced, revealing 16 new giant viruses. These viruses represented new viral lineages or were close to other known giant viruses: Klosneuviruses, CroV virus or Tupanviruses. The researchers noted a significant number of genes, namely more than 240.
Researchers baptized the viruses with names evoking their origin: Dasovirus, from the Greek daso, for forest, or Solumvirus, from the Latin solum, for soil.
“The fact that we found all these giant virus genomes in the soil was particularly intriguing because most of the giant viruses previously described were found in aquatic habitats. The metagenomic data generated here, from a single sampling site, contained many more new genomes of giant viruses than any data set I have seen to date”, said Frederik Schulz in a statement.
