Researchers identified over 5,500 new viruses in the ocean, including a missing link in viral evolution

What is the News?

Researchers have identified more than 5,000 new RNA virus species in the world’s oceans.

What are RNA Viruses?

An RNA virus is a virus that has ribonucleic acid (RNA) as its genetic material. This means they carry their genetic information in RNA, rather than DNA. They also evolve at much quicker rates than DNA viruses do.

RNA viruses are best known for the diseases they cause in people, ranging from the common cold to COVID-19. They also infect plants and animals.

Besides causing diseases, RNA viruses also play a vital role in ecosystems because they can infect a wide array of organisms, including microbes that influence environments and food webs at the chemical level.

However, RNA Viruses have been relatively unstudied when compared to DNA Viruses.

What did the researchers do?

Researchers analyzed tens of thousands of water samples from around the globe, hunting for RNA viruses, or viruses that use RNA as their genetic material. 

Note: Unlike humans and other organisms composed of cells, viruses lack unique short stretches of DNA that could act as what researchers call a genetic barcode. Without this bar code, trying to distinguish different species of the virus is challenging.

What did the researchers find out?

Researchers identified a total of 5,504 new marine RNA viruses and doubled the number of known RNA virus phyla from five to 10. 

What is the significance of these findings?

These new RNA sequences will help scientists better understand not only the evolutionary history of RNA viruses, but also the evolution of early life on Earth.

Moreover, mapping out where in the world these RNA viruses live can help clarify how they affect the organisms driving many of the ecological processes that run our planet. 

Source: This post is based on the article “Researchers identified over 5,500 new viruses in the ocean, including a missing link in viral evolution” published in Down To Earth on 8th April 2022.