Scientists at the University of Innsbruck have found over 30,000 viruses by utilizing the high-performance laptop cluster ‘Leo’ and complicated detective work ( Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences).
The viruses hide in the DNA of unicellular organisms. In some instances, as much as 10% of microbial DNA consists of built-in viruses. Built into the genome of the microbes, they discovered the DNA of over 30,000 beforehand unknown viruses, says a launch. This hidden DNA might enable the replication of full and useful viruses in the host cell. These viruses don’t seem to hurt their hosts. On the opposite, some might even shield them. Many look like much like so-called virophages. These viruses infect and destroy different dangerous viruses that infect their host cell.
The DNA of the newly found viruses is much like virophage DNA. Therefore, it’s possible that the host microbes shield themselves from big viruses by way of these built-in viruses.
