The boiling, acidic conditions of the hot springs of Yellowstone volcano may seem like a place where life is impossible, but surprisingly it thrives there. A microbial ecosystem has developed in these springs, including viruses that prey on bacteria, archaea and algae.
The attention of many world media is riveted to the Yellowstone volcano. Internet search engines are full of phrases: Yellowstone latest news, Yellowstone volcano today, Yellowstone volcano latest news today, Yellowstone 2018, etc.
The discovery made by American scientists, against the background of the emerging interest in the activation of the volcano, remained almost unnoticed, but it can play a huge role in the fight against serious and fatal diseases.
New research examining extreme viruses has revealed how they carry these conditions and may help develop nanobots to deliver drugs to cancerous tissues.
The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, focuses on the sulfur bacteria Acidianus. There are three common forms for viruses: spherical, cylindrical, or lemon. Although the structures of the first two have been well studied, the construction of lemon viruses remains less understood.
Acidianus falls into this latter category, which means that by studying a virus that has nestled itself well in Yellowstone's hot springs, researchers were able to uncover a completely new way viruses act when creating particles and interacting with host cells.
“We've been studying the principles of building cylindrical and spherical viruses for many years, but this is the first time we've really understood how a third class of viruses is made,” explains co-author Martin Lawrence in a statement.
The ability to study these infectious agents was greatly facilitated by the development of cryoelectron microscopy, which sparked a revolution among microbiologists. The new imaging technology, which won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2017, allows scientists not only to depict proteins and structures, but even the individual atoms of which they are made, reports vnauke.in.ua
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For this latest study, the method - combined with X-ray crystallography - allowed the team of scientists to pinpoint exactly how the Acidianus shell is created. “We now understand how this third type of viral envelope assembles and the dynamic process it uses to transfer and then eventually eject the DNA that it carries,” Lawrence says. "This understanding can potentially be adapted for technological purposes."
The Acidianus virus makes a "remarkable transition" from lemon shape to long, thin cylinders as it interacts with host cells through a structure that Lawrence describes as being like bricks tied by ropes. This allows the virus to quickly change shape when needed. When the so-called ropes slide alongside each other, they "send DNA from the virus to the cell that the virus infects."
The researchers believe that understanding how viruses control these shape-shifting movements, as well as how they inject their DNA under such extreme conditions, will be invaluable in developing nanobots that accurately inject drugs at specific delivery sites.