Undersea warfare: Viruses hijack deep-sea bacteria at hydrothermal vents
Date:
May 1, 2014
Source:
National Science Foundation
Summary:
More
than a mile beneath the ocean's surface, as dark clouds of mineral-rich
water billow from seafloor hot springs called hydrothermal vents,
unseen armies of viruses and bacteria wage war.
Credit: NOAA
[Click to enlarge image]
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than a mile beneath the ocean's surface, as dark clouds of mineral-rich
water billow from seafloor hot springs called hydrothermal vents,
unseen armies of viruses and bacteria wage war.
Like
pirates boarding a treasure-laden ship, the viruses infect bacterial
cells to get the loot: tiny globules of elemental sulfur stored inside
the bacterial cells.
Instead of absconding with their prize, the viruses force the bacteria to burn their valuable sulfur reserves, then use the unleashed energy to replicate.
"Our findings suggest that viruses in the dark oceans indirectly access vast energy sources in the form of elemental sulfur," said University of Michigan marine microbiologist and oceanographer Gregory Dick, whose team collected DNA from deep-sea microbes in seawater samples from hydrothermal vents in the Western Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California.
"We suspect that these viruses are essentially hijacking bacterial cells and getting them to consume elemental sulfur so the viruses can propagate themselves," said Karthik Anantharaman of the University of Michigan, first author of a paper on the findings published this week in the journal Science Express.
Similar microbial interactions have been observed in shallow ocean waters between photosynthetic bacteria and the viruses that prey upon them.
But this is the first time such a relationship has been seen in a chemosynthetic system, one in which the microbes rely solely on inorganic compounds, rather than sunlight, as their energy source.
"Viruses play a cardinal role in biogeochemical processes in ocean shallows," said David Garrison, a program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research. "They may have similar importance in deep-sea thermal vent environments."
Read More Here
Instead of absconding with their prize, the viruses force the bacteria to burn their valuable sulfur reserves, then use the unleashed energy to replicate.
"Our findings suggest that viruses in the dark oceans indirectly access vast energy sources in the form of elemental sulfur," said University of Michigan marine microbiologist and oceanographer Gregory Dick, whose team collected DNA from deep-sea microbes in seawater samples from hydrothermal vents in the Western Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of California.
"We suspect that these viruses are essentially hijacking bacterial cells and getting them to consume elemental sulfur so the viruses can propagate themselves," said Karthik Anantharaman of the University of Michigan, first author of a paper on the findings published this week in the journal Science Express.
Similar microbial interactions have been observed in shallow ocean waters between photosynthetic bacteria and the viruses that prey upon them.
But this is the first time such a relationship has been seen in a chemosynthetic system, one in which the microbes rely solely on inorganic compounds, rather than sunlight, as their energy source.
"Viruses play a cardinal role in biogeochemical processes in ocean shallows," said David Garrison, a program director in the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Division of Ocean Sciences, which funded the research. "They may have similar importance in deep-sea thermal vent environments."
Read More Here
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