#ARCTIC. #SIBERIA. THIS IS TAIMYR. In 2024, a team of scientists from the Arctic Floating University was the first in Russian and international science to search for giant viruses in high latitudes, exploring the islands of the Franz Josef Land and Novaya Zemlya archipelagos.
The researchers collected unique samples on the islands of the Arctic ocean and obtained the first results of their analysis in laboratory conditions, the Nauka.rf website reports.
As experts have found out, giant viruses are 30 times larger than normal ones. The SARS-CoV-2 virion, which caused the coronavirus outbreak, is 50 to 200 nanometers in size, while the virus found in the permafrost of Yakutia reaches 1500 nanometers in length, which allows it to be seen with a conventional light microscope. And this is not the only difference. Giant viruses have a very complex genetic structure and almost do not include genes characteristic of other groups of viruses. These studies have become one of the most pressing topics in global microbiology.
“This area may become a breakthrough in biology. We assume that Arctic ecosystems may be carriers of unique representatives of this group of viruses”, said Artemy Goncharov, doctor of medical sciences, the Experimental Medicine Institute’s Laboratory for Microorganisms’ Functional Genomics and Proteomics’ head, the Mechnikov North-West State Medical University’s Epidemiology department’s professor.
The viruses were found in the fossilized remains of animals. Thus, one is approximately 30 thousand years old. The origin of these viruses remains a mystery, as do the mechanisms of their evolution. Currently, the findings are the subject of active study.
Earlier, This Is Taimyr reported that scientists ‘awakened’ viruses from the Siberian permafrost aged 48.5 thousand years.
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Text: Polina Bardik, Photo: Nikolay Shchipko
