Virovore: An organism that eats viruses.
Any organism has probably developed to consume any organic material. Different animals eat plants, meat, algae, insects, and germs, but now scientists have found something new on the menu: Virovore!
Since viruses are present everywhere, it is inevitable that creatures may unintentionally consume them. John DeLong, a researcher at the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, sought to know whether any bacteria finished viruses actively and whether such a diet could support individual and community development. before going into the details about this interesting topic let’s first discuss viruses
Table of Contents
Viruses: an overview
Viruses are commonly thought of as pathogens that bring harm to plants and animals. But in recent years, it has become more and more obvious that they are essential to the world’s seas. The effect of viruses on the cycling of nutrients and carbon in oceans is currently of significant interest.
Although viruses are common and active elements of marine ecosystems, they can be inactivated or destroyed by a number of environmental conditions. The destruction of a sizable portion of their natural hosts, primarily heterotrophic bacteria and phytoplankton, as a result of the high rate of new virus creation necessary to maintain robust viral populations.
Emerging viral infections and outbreaks of severe viral diseases have dominated the popular media in recent years. The importance of viral illness to the health of people, animals, and even plants is widely recognized. The importance of viruses in the formation and operation of aquatic food webs as well as in the global carbon and other chemical cycles is now being recognized by scientists.
These cycles ultimately have a significant impact on the chemistry and physics of the oceans. For instance, changes in the planet’s carbon budget will have an impact on temperature, which will then have an impact on ocean circulation.
Virovores: An organism that eats viruses
The first known “virovore,” or organism that consumes viruses, has been discovered by researchers. Organic matter is the food source for every known type of living on the planet. This is probably far closer to an entire, uncharted food chain.
The discovery was produced by microbiologist John DeLong and his team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the United States.
DeLong, J. P., Van Etten, J. L., Al-Ameeli, Z., Agarkova, I. V., & Dunigan, D. D. (2023). The consumption of viruses returns energy to food chains. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 120(1), e2215000120.
According to the science publication Newatlas, University of Nebraska–Lincoln researcher John DeLong wanted to learn whether any bacteria actively consumed viruses and whether such a diet could support both individual and communal population growth.
In a study released on Tuesday (December 27), researchers discovered that a type of Halteria, tiny ciliates common in freshwater habitats all over the world, may consume a significant quantity of infectious chloroviruses. For the first time, the team’s laboratory tests have also demonstrated that a virus-only diet, or “virovory,” is sufficient to support an organism’s physiological growth and even population increase.
Complete reading-The consumption of viruses returns energy to food chains | PNAS
Statements by Microbiologist John DeLong
“They’re made up of really good stuff: nucleic acids, a lot of nitrogen, and phosphorous,” said John DeLong.
“Everything should want to eat them. So many things will eat anything they can get a hold of. Surely something would have learned how to eat these really good raw materials.”
“If you multiply a crude estimate of how many viruses there are, how many ciliates there are and how much water there is, it comes out to this massive amount of energy movement (up the food chain),” said John Delong, who estimated that ciliates in a small pond might eat 10 trillion viruses a day. “If this is happening at the scale that we think it could be, it should completely change our view on global carbon cycling.”
Insights of the Research done on Virovore
In addition to affecting host cells, viruses also indirectly affect ecosystem processes. The number of virions in the water can be decreased by plankton-like ciliates, however, it is unknown whether viral consumption has an impact on the demographics of grazers. Here, Scientists demonstrate that when given only viruses to eat, little protists can grow and divide in addition to consuming viruses.
Furthermore, the kinetics and interaction parameters of the ciliate Halteria sp. feeding on chloroviruses are comparable to those of other microbial trophic relationships. These findings show that by rerouting energy up food chains, viruses have an impact on ecosystems that goes beyond (and in contrast to) the viral shunt.
DeLong and his team took pond water samples, extracted several microorganisms, and then introduced a lot of chlorovirus, a freshwater resident that infects green algae, to test the theory. The scientists monitored the population sizes of the viruses and the other bacteria over the following few days to see whether the latter were consuming the former.
Results
One specific microbe—a ciliate called Halteria—seemed to be nibbling on the viruses. In water samples where the ciliates had no other food source, Halteria populations increased by around 15 times in just two days, whereas chlorovirus levels decreased by 100 times. Without the virus, Halteria did not develop at all in control samples.
The team discovered that Halteria cells immediately started to glow after labelling chlorovirus DNA with fluorescent dye in follow-up experiments. This made it easier to verify that Halteria was indeed eating the virus.
These studies demonstrate that the recently formed term “virovory” can now coexist with herbivory, carnivory, and other forms of eating, with Halteria being recognized as the first known virovore. It’s not the only one, of course, and the researchers intend to keep looking into it, as well as how it affects broader systems like the carbon cycle and food webs. There is a lot to discover about virovore.
Summary
The first known organism that consumes viruses has been discovered by researchers. The discovery was made by microbiologist John DeLong and his team at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in the United States. He wanted to know whether any bacteria actively consumed viruses and whether such a diet could support individual and community growth. Ciliates, tiny ciliates common in freshwater habitats all over the world, may consume a significant quantity of infectious chloroviruses. A virus-only diet is sufficient to support an organism’s physiological growth and even population increase.
“If this is happening at the scale that we think it could be, it should completely change our view on global carbon cycling,” says Microbiologist John Delong. When given only viruses to eat, little protists can grow and divide in addition to consuming viruses. Halteria sp. feeding on chloroviruses is comparable to other microbial trophic relationships. Findings show that by rerouting energy up food chains, viruses have an impact on ecosystems that goes beyond (and in contrast to) the viral shunt. That’s how a virovore can affect the food chain.
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