15,000-Year-Old Viruses Discovered in Tibetan Glacier Ice – Previously Unknown to Humans - SciTechDaily

Most of the viruses were previously unknown to humans, study finds.

Scientists who study glacier ice have found viruses nearly 15,000 years old in two ice samples taken from the Tibetan Plateau in China.

For this study, the scientists also created a new, ultra-clean method of analyzing microbes and viruses in ice without contaminating it.

“These glaciers were formed gradually, and along with dust and gases, many, many viruses were also deposited in that ice,” said Zhi-Ping Zhong, lead author of the study and a researcher at The Ohio State University Byrd Polar and Climate Research Center who also focuses on microbiology.

Those layers create a timeline of sorts, which scientists have used to understand more about climate change, microbes, viruses and gases throughout history.

When they analyzed the ice, they found genetic codes for 33 viruses.

Four of those viruses have already been identified by the scientific community.

When they analyzed the ice, they found genetic codes for 33 viruses.

Four of those viruses have already been identified by the scientific community.

The ice held viruses nearly 15,000 years old, a new study has found.

These are not easy signatures to pull out, and the method that Zhi-Ping developed to decontaminate the cores and to study microbes and viruses in ice could help us search for these genetic sequences in other extreme icy environments – Mars, for example, the moon, or closer to home in Earth’s Atacama Desert.”.

Viruses do not share a common, universal gene, so naming a new virus – and attempting to figure out where it fits into the landscape of known viruses – involves multiple steps.

To compare unidentified viruses with known viruses, scientists compare gene sets.

Gene sets from known viruses are cataloged in scientific databases.

Those database comparisons showed that four of the viruses in the Guliya ice cap cores had previously been identified and were from virus families that typically infect bacteria?

The researchers’ analysis showed that the viruses likely originated with soil or plants, not with animals or humans, based on both the environment and the databases of known viruses.

The study of viruses in glaciers is relatively new: Just two previous studies have identified viruses in ancient glacier ice.

“We know very little about viruses and microbes in these extreme environments, and what is actually there,” Thompson said.

Reference: “Glacier ice archives nearly 15,000-year-old microbes and phages” by Zhi-Ping Zhong, Funing Tian, Simon Roux, M.