An Update on Eukaryotic Viruses Revived from Ancient Permafrost
One quarter of the Northern hemisphere is underlain by permanently frozen ground, referred to as permafrost. Due to climate warming, irreversibly thawing permafrost is releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years, most of which decomposes into carbon dioxide and methane, further enhanci...
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ftdoajarticles:oai:doaj.org/article:29ddcb45067f406d8274679402de92ec 2023-05-15T16:58:56+02:00 An Update on Eukaryotic Viruses Revived from Ancient Permafrost Jean-Marie Alempic Audrey Lartigue Artemiy E. Goncharov Guido Grosse Jens Strauss Alexey N. Tikhonov Alexander N. Fedorov Olivier Poirot Matthieu Legendre Sébastien Santini Chantal Abergel Jean-Michel Claverie 2023-02-01T00:00:00Z https://doi.org/10.3390/v15020564 https://doaj.org/article/29ddcb45067f406d8274679402de92ec EN eng MDPI AG https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/15/2/564 https://doaj.org/toc/1999-4915 doi:10.3390/v15020564 1999-4915 https://doaj.org/article/29ddcb45067f406d8274679402de92ec Viruses, Vol 15, Iss 564, p 564 (2023) permafrost Acanthamoeba giant virus Pleistocene Siberia Kamchatka Microbiology QR1-502 article 2023 ftdoajarticles https://doi.org/10.3390/v15020564 2023-02-26T01:27:50Z One quarter of the Northern hemisphere is underlain by permanently frozen ground, referred to as permafrost. Due to climate warming, irreversibly thawing permafrost is releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years, most of which decomposes into carbon dioxide and methane, further enhancing the greenhouse effect. Part of this organic matter also consists of revived cellular microbes (prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes) as well as viruses that have remained dormant since prehistorical times. While the literature abounds on descriptions of the rich and diverse prokaryotic microbiomes found in permafrost, no additional report about “live” viruses have been published since the two original studies describing pithovirus (in 2014) and mollivirus (in 2015). This wrongly suggests that such occurrences are rare and that “zombie viruses” are not a public health threat. To restore an appreciation closer to reality, we report the preliminary characterizations of 13 new viruses isolated from seven different ancient Siberian permafrost samples, one from the Lena river and one from Kamchatka cryosol. As expected from the host specificity imposed by our protocol, these viruses belong to five different clades infecting Acanthamoeba spp. but not previously revived from permafrost: Pandoravirus, Cedratvirus, Megavirus, and Pacmanvirus, in addition to a new Pithovirus strain. Article in Journal/Newspaper Kamchatka lena river permafrost Siberia Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles Viruses 15 2 564 |
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Open Polar |
collection |
Directory of Open Access Journals: DOAJ Articles |
op_collection_id |
ftdoajarticles |
language |
English |
topic |
permafrost Acanthamoeba giant virus Pleistocene Siberia Kamchatka Microbiology QR1-502 |
spellingShingle |
permafrost Acanthamoeba giant virus Pleistocene Siberia Kamchatka Microbiology QR1-502 Jean-Marie Alempic Audrey Lartigue Artemiy E. Goncharov Guido Grosse Jens Strauss Alexey N. Tikhonov Alexander N. Fedorov Olivier Poirot Matthieu Legendre Sébastien Santini Chantal Abergel Jean-Michel Claverie An Update on Eukaryotic Viruses Revived from Ancient Permafrost |
topic_facet |
permafrost Acanthamoeba giant virus Pleistocene Siberia Kamchatka Microbiology QR1-502 |
description |
One quarter of the Northern hemisphere is underlain by permanently frozen ground, referred to as permafrost. Due to climate warming, irreversibly thawing permafrost is releasing organic matter frozen for up to a million years, most of which decomposes into carbon dioxide and methane, further enhancing the greenhouse effect. Part of this organic matter also consists of revived cellular microbes (prokaryotes, unicellular eukaryotes) as well as viruses that have remained dormant since prehistorical times. While the literature abounds on descriptions of the rich and diverse prokaryotic microbiomes found in permafrost, no additional report about “live” viruses have been published since the two original studies describing pithovirus (in 2014) and mollivirus (in 2015). This wrongly suggests that such occurrences are rare and that “zombie viruses” are not a public health threat. To restore an appreciation closer to reality, we report the preliminary characterizations of 13 new viruses isolated from seven different ancient Siberian permafrost samples, one from the Lena river and one from Kamchatka cryosol. As expected from the host specificity imposed by our protocol, these viruses belong to five different clades infecting Acanthamoeba spp. but not previously revived from permafrost: Pandoravirus, Cedratvirus, Megavirus, and Pacmanvirus, in addition to a new Pithovirus strain. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Jean-Marie Alempic Audrey Lartigue Artemiy E. Goncharov Guido Grosse Jens Strauss Alexey N. Tikhonov Alexander N. Fedorov Olivier Poirot Matthieu Legendre Sébastien Santini Chantal Abergel Jean-Michel Claverie |
author_facet |
Jean-Marie Alempic Audrey Lartigue Artemiy E. Goncharov Guido Grosse Jens Strauss Alexey N. Tikhonov Alexander N. Fedorov Olivier Poirot Matthieu Legendre Sébastien Santini Chantal Abergel Jean-Michel Claverie |
author_sort |
Jean-Marie Alempic |
title |
An Update on Eukaryotic Viruses Revived from Ancient Permafrost |
title_short |
An Update on Eukaryotic Viruses Revived from Ancient Permafrost |
title_full |
An Update on Eukaryotic Viruses Revived from Ancient Permafrost |
title_fullStr |
An Update on Eukaryotic Viruses Revived from Ancient Permafrost |
title_full_unstemmed |
An Update on Eukaryotic Viruses Revived from Ancient Permafrost |
title_sort |
update on eukaryotic viruses revived from ancient permafrost |
publisher |
MDPI AG |
publishDate |
2023 |
url |
https://doi.org/10.3390/v15020564 https://doaj.org/article/29ddcb45067f406d8274679402de92ec |
genre |
Kamchatka lena river permafrost Siberia |
genre_facet |
Kamchatka lena river permafrost Siberia |
op_source |
Viruses, Vol 15, Iss 564, p 564 (2023) |
op_relation |
https://www.mdpi.com/1999-4915/15/2/564 https://doaj.org/toc/1999-4915 doi:10.3390/v15020564 1999-4915 https://doaj.org/article/29ddcb45067f406d8274679402de92ec |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.3390/v15020564 |
container_title |
Viruses |
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15 |
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2 |
container_start_page |
564 |
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1766051079441612800 |