The Guliya cap (one of the oldest ice caps on the planet), on the Tibetan plateau, in China, has been the place where a team of scientists from the Ohio State University, the University of Nebraska and the Institute The US Department of Energy Genome Ensemble had sampled ice cores, discovering 28 viruses that had been frozen for 15,000 years, and were previously unknown to humanity.
The finding has been detailed in an article published on the bioRxiv website and is pending peer review.
The oldest ice on Earth
This 200-square-kilometer crust of ice west of the Kunlun Mountains began to form before the end of the last ice age. Scientists drilled 50 meters deep into the 15,000-year-old ice, took two core samples to study the microbes within, identifying more than 30 groups of viruses, 28 of them new to science.
“The microbes differed significantly between the two ice cores, representing very different climatic conditions at the time of deposition that is similar to the findings in other cores,” the authors wrote stating that the experiment will help establish a line of basis for glacier viruses.
The study of bacteria found in glacial ice dates back to the early 20th century; And it is that studying microbes, bacteria and viruses frozen in ancient ice offers us a window to the environment and climatic conditions of a long time ago. To get to the inner core of the ice, the researchers had to use a sterilized saw and a -5 ° C room to scrape off the layers until they could reach the uncontaminated ice.
Then they used ethanol to wash and melt another half an inch of ice, and then sterile water to wash another half inch. This allowed them to access the inner layer to do the study. They basically employed an ultra clean microbial and viral sampling procedure.
As glaciers around the world continue to decline, frozen viruses and microbes are being exposed and fear they will be lost forever if they are not cataloged before the glaciers melt and, “at worst, this melting of ice could release pathogens into the environment “, clarify the experts. Recall that in 2016 there was an anthrax outbreak in a remote part of Siberia attributed to virus spores released from reindeer remains buried in permafrost for 75 years. In this case, a heat wave was responsible for its appearance due to the high temperatures.
Why study such ancient viruses?
It serves two important purposes: it could help prevent, prepare us for future disease outbreaks, and it also provides scientists with new details about the climate throughout Earth’s history and which microbes and viruses were able to survive the different ones. extreme conditions.
The more secrets we can get out of these frozen conglomerates, the better.
Referencia: bioRxiv preprint Glacier ice archives fifteen-thousand-year-old viruses Zhi-Ping Zhong, Natalie E. Solonenko, Yueh-Fen Li, Maria C. Gazitúa, Simon Roux, Mary E. Davis, James L. Van Etten, Ellen Mosley-Thompson, Virginia I. Rich, Matthew B. Sullivan, Lonnie G. Thompson doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.03.894675
