'Zombie virus' is resurrected in the Arctic after 48 years

The melting of glaciers in the Northern Hemisphere, as a result of global warming, has been a wake-up call for scientists around the world. And recently, samples of “zombie virus” (in this case, a dormant and frozen virus) were discovered in parts of the call “permafrost” (or permafrost), located in the Arctic, and analyzed in the laboratory for possible forms of infection, or “resuscitation”.

Information about the “zombie virus”

A permafrost it is a layer of the subsoil that is permanently frozen. With that, it works indirectly as a “time capsule”, by preserving remains of extinct animals from the icy region. So-called "zombie viruses", thousands of years old, have been identified in parts of permafrost that have been affected by climate change. The most recent of these dates back to 48.500 years ago, taken from a soil sample from an underground lake, 16 meters below the surface.

Jean Michel Claverie, professor of medicine and genomics at University of Medicine Aix-Marsseille, located in Marseille, France, has been working on studies of the so-called “zombie virus” and its possible consequences. Jean analyzed samples taken from the permafrost from Siberia, in an attempt to discover whether any particles found could be infectious; and the scholar found some.

Claverie studies a virus initially discovered by him in 2003, known as a “giant virus”: one that can be analyzed using light microscopes instead of electronic ones. And in 2014 and 2015, the scientist managed to revive viruses from permafrost isolated on both occasions, which could only infect protozoa of the genus amoeba — and was successful in “resuscitating” the infectious agents.

Still, in February of this year, Jean published a study with samples from Siberia, also with a positive result in the infection of selected amoebae. The 48-year-old Arctic virus was the oldest identified in recent studies.

We see the viruses that infected the amoebas as “surrogates” for other possible viruses that may be in the permafrost. We've found traces of many, many, many other viruses, so we know they're there. We don't know if they're still alive, but the reasoning is that if the samples that infected the amoebas are, there's no reason the others shouldn't also be able to infect their own hosts.

Jean Michel Claverie for the CNN newspaper

Can “zombie virus” samples in the Arctic reach humans?

Despite the results of tests with the “zombie virus” of permafrost, it is still difficult to know whether the specimens will survive today's climatic conditions. As the permafrost is an oxygen-free environment, where sunlight cannot penetrate, such viruses can maintain their particularities when they are frozen; but this is no longer the rule when they are exposed to the current temperature in the Arctic, which increases four times faster than in the rest of the EARTH.

Plus, there's the fact that not all viruses can cause disease in humans, and some are even benign. However, in an interview with CNN, Jean Michel Claverie says the risk may change with current climate change. “The thawing of permafrost it will accelerate, and more people may end up going to the Arctic due to industrial expeditions”, he comments.

Apart from the viruses identified in the permafrost, traces of chemical and radioactive material can also be found in the Arctic region. In addition to the zombie virus, humanity must be careful not only with its own organism, but also with the world's wildlife.

“The defense of the immune system was developed in contact with microbiological environments. If there is a virus permafrost hidden, which we have not had contact with for thousands of years, it may be that our defense system is not enough. You have to respect the situation and be proactive, and one way to combat fear is through knowledge”, explains Brigitta Evengård, professor at the Department of Clinical Microbiology at the University of Uema, Sweden, for the CNN.

Kimberly Miner, a climate scientist working for the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in California, warns of the importance of maintaining the permafrost frozen. "There's a lot of permafrost that is of concern to us (...) and it's still not clear how these microbes are going to interact with the modern environment." For Miner, letting viruses from permafrost untouched after research can be a good alternative.

Text revised by Dacio Castelo Branco in 10 / 03 / 2023

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Source: CNN World