The world beneath the ice of Antarctica may take the answer to many mysteries , including one that has been vexing biologists for a foresighted prison term : the origin of viruses .
research worker have found a microorganism in a hyper - saline Antarctic lake that hold in a part of deoxyribonucleic acid that can build up itself a hardy capsule . It wrench out that this then grant the deoxyribonucleic acid to escape from its cellular phone and encroach upon other microbes of the same species , before begin to replicate in the new host . The team thinks this might hint at theorigin of at least some virus , before life count anything like it does today .
The germ in question was find in the piquant lakes of Rauer Islands , off the coast of Antarctica . Known asHalorubrum lacusprofundi , they are a grouping of single - celled organisms known as archaea , meaning they have no cell nucleus . Within the muddle of DNA float around the cell , however , it does have what are known as plasmid . These small circles of DNA are sleep together to move from one cell to the next , passing on small bits of genetic information .
“ Unlike viruses , which encase themselves in a protective protein coat , plasmids usually move around by jail cell to cell inter-group communication , or as a spell of naked DNA , ” explains Professor Rick Cavicchioli , co - author of the novel paper inNature Microbiology , in astatement . “ But the plasmids that we see in the south-polar microbes were masquerade as viruses . They acquire proteins which went into the innkeeper ’s tissue layer , which then allowed the membrane to bud off contain the plasmid DNA . ”
Not only were the lilliputian bits of desoxyribonucleic acid capable to “ infect ” cells ofH. lacusprofundithat did not have any plasmid already within them , but they also found that the circle of genetic textile involve some of the new host ’s DNA and integrated it into its own , before once again making a new membrane and then go off to taint more cellular phone .
This may be a crucial step in the development of the family - defying viruses .
It is mostly accepted that virus are ancient agent . It is thought that they plausibly evolve before the three main domains of life – bacteria , eukaryotes , and archaea . They then split , infect the usual ancestor to all three . But where , or more importantly how , viruses first came about is anything but certain .
This latest finding paint a picture that one such possibility , that viruses evolved from plasmid DNA , may actually have some support . Previously , it was thought that this might not be possible , because plasmids are usually far more canonical – being made from just nude circular DNA – while virus have a complex protein sheath . Many , therefore , thought that there was too big a saltation between the two . Now , however , it seems there may be a plausible pathway between plasmid DNA and at least some viruses .
