But they use a special type of microscope that uses a beam of electrons to capture images, DeCarvalho said. I witnessed a truly bizarre moment. It’s like being a wildlife photographer who captures animal behavior that no one expected.
“You could literally see this little guy attached to hundreds of people’s necks. It obviously wasn’t random,” said DeCarvalho, who manages the Keith R. Porter Imaging Facility at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. he said. “We know that viruses can do surprising and interesting things. But this is another new thing that no one expected we would see. It’s nothing more than that.”
In recent research, Journal of the International Society of Microbial Ecology, DeCarvalho and others explain how this much-talked-about odd couple came to be. This tiny virus, called MiniFlayer, loses the ability to make copies of itself inside cells, which is how viruses reproduce. So evolution devised a clever parasitic workaround. MiniFlayer grabs the neck of another virus called MindFlayer, enters cells together, and uses its mate’s genetic machinery to multiply.
Is it a hug? Strangulation? DeCarvalho likens this relationship to a viral hitchhike. Her collaborator, UMBC computational biologist Ivan Eril, likens it to a vampire sinking its teeth into its prey. While it’s not a perfect analogy, he points out that if you find a MindFlayer on its own, you might find “bite marks” where the MiniFlayer’s tendrils were attached.
“Viruses can do anything. They are nature’s most creative force,” Erill said. “If something was possible, they would figure out a way to make it happen. But no one expected them to do something like this.”
The strange world of viruses
The discovery began with undergraduate class Designed to teach students basic laboratory techniques, they will be asked to isolate phages from soil samples and study them using genetics. DeCarvalho has been working on the program for seven years and said that for many students, seeing the phages is an exciting moment, similar to parents seeing an ultrasound of their fetus for the first time.
In this case, undergraduate students Jenelle Lewis and Hira Ahmed isolated and named the phage. mind flayer However, genome sequencing returned puzzling results suggesting some kind of contamination. When De Carvalho looked at it under a microscope, he noticed that he had two phages instead of one.
The “virosphere,” as scientists call the strange universe of viruses, is known to contain elements called “satellites,” which have lost the ability to replicate within cells. Satellites usually overcome this defect by integrating into the genome of the cells they infect. They lie there until another virus, or “helper,” with the missing component happens to invade the cell. The satellite then seizes the opportunity to create a copy of itself.
MiniFlayer is a satellite, but unlike the regular version, it does not have the ability to hide inside a cell. So the challenge remains how to ensure that the helper reaches the cell at the same time.
“What this virus has done is, ‘Okay, I’m going to attach to my helper, I’m going to attach myself to its neck, and I’m going to travel with the helper until I find new cells,'” Erill said.
This applies to microbiology courses. molecular piracy Hijacking has been honed over millions of years of evolution. Bacteria vastly outnumber their viral predators and are subject to an ongoing evolutionary arms race. Bacteria develop defenses and virus phages develop counter-defense strategies. Phages parasitize other phages.
Researchers are interested in using phages, the natural enemies of bacteria, as medicine. Phage therapy can be used to target harmful infections, and this approach may become even more important as the threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria increases.
Terje Doklund, a professor of microbiology at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, who was not involved in the study, said the observation of the two attached phages was “interesting,” but it is difficult to draw firmer conclusions about the interaction. called for more images and research. Find out if the two viruses are actually co-infecting cells.
The authors hope to collaborate with groups that use different forms of electron microscopy to understand more clearly what is going on. Unlike a vampire, MiniFlayer he points out deCarvalho, he’s not sucking anything out of MindFlayer.
“We don’t know if the satellite is injecting its DNA into the helper, or if it’s just hitchhiking along and dropping off like a tick,” DeCarvalho said. “I hope someone else picks up this work and answers some of the really interesting questions.”
