But can newly thawed microbes “wake up” and infect anything? What potential threat do they pose to human health and the environment? An international group of scientists set out to seek answers to these questions in a new study published online February 18 in the journal Viruses.

What scientists have learned

According to a study published in 2021 in the journal Frontiers in Veterinary Science, disease outbreaks caused by permafrost are not uncommon. Deer herds periodically ingest anthrax from bacteria found in thawing permafrost. The same problem affected several people.

In a new study that has not yet been peer-reviewed, scientists isolated 13 viruses from seven permafrost samples and two water samplestaken from the rivers. Three of these – Megavirus mammoth, Pithovirus mammoth, and Pandoravirus mammoth – were found in the fur of a 27,000-year-old mammoth. Another was discovered in the frozen gut of an ancient wolf.

• The scientists carefully decoded the microbes in the lab and sequenced their genomes.
• The researchers then infected the amoeba cells with newly awakened viruses.
• Although some viruses are 48,000 years old, they have multiplied in amoebae, causing them to burst and release fresh virus particles.

There are no specific data on the ability of such viruses and bacteria to infect more complex creatures (for example, animals or humans), as the scientists did not go further in their experiments. But The fact that they have retained such a function indicates the possible existence of precisely such dangerous organisms..

Previous studies of viruses trapped in Arctic permafrost were few and far between. However, according to the authors, this study refutes the old hypothesis that frozen soil contains few living microbes. In addition to the viruses they reanimated, the team Traces of many other species, including those associated with known human pathogens such as poxviruses and herpesviruses.