Israeli-led study claims to uncover 100,000 previously unknown viruses

Source The Times Of Israel

Researchers hope groundbreaking findings into RNA pathogens could help develop new kinds of antimicrobial drugs and protect against agriculturally harmful fungi and parasites

 

Media www.rajawalisiber.com – An Israeli-led team of scientists is claiming to have discovered some 100,000 new types of viruses previously unknown to science.

The groundbreaking research was published in the prestigious academic journal Cell in September after scientists from Tel Aviv University and elsewhere examined environmental data from soil samples, oceans, lakes, and a variety of other ecosystems from around the world.

The study has led to a whopping ninefold increase in the number of RNA viruses now known to science, according to Tel Aviv University. Unlike DNA viruses, an RNA virus infects cells by injecting RNA into the cytoplasm of the host cells and its mutation rate is higher.

Some notable human diseases caused by RNA viruses include COVID-19, the common cold, influenza, SARS, MERS, hepatitis C, hepatitis E, West Nile fever, Ebola and measles.

Having also identified which organisms the viruses they discovered were likely to attack, the scientists hope their discovery could help develop new kinds of antimicrobial drugs and protect against agriculturally harmful fungi and parasites.

The study, which also included research from Stanford, the US National Insitutes of Health, the US Department of Energy, France’s Institut Pasteur and elsewhere, relied on data collected by over a hundred scientists worldwide.

In this May 19, 2021, photo, a licensed practical nurse draws a Moderna COVID-19 vaccine into a syringe at a mass vaccination clinic at Gillette Stadium in Foxborough, Massachusetts. (AP Photo/Steven Senne)

According to lead author Uri Neri, a Tel Aviv doctoral student, the findings were made possible thanks to new computational technologies that allowed researchers to effectively gather genetic information collected from thousands of different sampling points.

The system, which was developed for the purpose of the study, also allowed researchers to reconstruct how the viruses underwent diverse acclimation processes throughout their evolutionary development.

“One of the key questions in microbiology is how and why viruses transfer genes between them,” said Tel Aviv University Prof. Uri Gophna, who oversaw the study.

“The system we developed makes it possible to perform in-depth evolutionary analyses and to understand how the various RNA viruses have developed throughout evolutionary history,” he added.

“Compared to DNA viruses, the diversity and roles of RNA viruses in microbial ecosystems are not well understood,” Gophna said. “In our study, we found that RNA viruses are not unusual in the evolutionary landscape and, in fact, that in some aspects they are not that different from DNA viruses.

“This opens the door for future research, and for a better understanding of how viruses can be harnessed for use in medicine and agriculture.”

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