After the year we collectively had in 2020, not one person is a stranger to what a virus is, what with one wreaking havoc on humankind and collectively forcing us to stay home and abandon our normal lives. However, in a recent discovery, scientists have found evidence that there may exist organisms that eat viruses, and we can’t deny that it makes us happy to see that the tables have turned, for a change.
The research, published in the journal Frontiers in Microbiology, identifies two single-cell organisms, both found off the coast of Maine, that the researchers say can eat viruses.
“Our data show that many protist cells contain DNA of a wide variety of non-infectious viruses but not bacteria, strong evidence that they are feeding on viruses rather than on bacteria,” said corresponding author Ramunas Stepanauskas, director of the Single Cell Genomics Center at Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, in a statement. “That came as a big surprise, as these findings go against the currently predominant views of the role of viruses and protists in the marine food webs.”
According to the introduction of the research paper, they analyzed the composition of non-eukaryotic DNA associated with individual cells of small, planktonic protists in the Gulf of Maine (GoM) and the Mediterranean Sea. “Individual cells were isolated using fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS), their genomic DNA was amplified, and the obtained single amplified genomes (SAGs) were PCR-screened for bacterial and eukaryotic rRNA sequences. ”
In two types of tiny critters, known as choanozoans and picozoans, they found samples of viral genetic code — and since neither are vulnerable to viral infection, the scientists believe they’ve been snacking on viruses.
These findings confirm prior experiments with protistan isolates and indicate that the viral shunt is complemented by a viral link in the marine microbial food web. This link may constitute a sink of viral particles in the ocean and has implications for the flow of carbon through the microbial food web.
As far as scientists know, that’s rare in Earth’s ecosystem. Although there is substantial biomass of viruses, especially in the oceans, the two organisms found in the new research are the only ones known to consume them for nutrition.
It might be a little early to celebrate, but we’re still rooting for these organisms!
