At the lowest point, nearly 11,000 metres below the surface of the Pacific Ocean, a new virus named vB_HmeY_H4907 has been discovered on Earth.
About VB_HmeY_H4907:
It is a new virus discovered nearly 11,000 metres below the surface of the Pacific Ocean.
The virus has been understood as a Bacteriophage, which means ‘bacteria eater’.
It infects halophilic bacteria (bacteria that inhabit environments with high salt concentrations) from the genus Halomonas. Such bacteria are generally found in deep-sea hydrothermal vents.
The virus is actually very genetically similar to its hostand is a lysogenic phage, meaning that it inserts its genetic material into the bacteria but usually doesn’t kill it; instead, both virus and bacteria replicate at the same time.
What are Bacteriophages?
Bacteriophages, also known as phages, are viruses that infect and replicate in bacterial cells.
They also infect the single-celled prokaryotic organisms known as archaea.
They were discovered independently by Frederick W. Twort in Great Britain (1915) and Félix d’Hérelle in France (1917).
They are ubiquitous in the environment and are recognised as the most abundant biological agent on earth.
They are extremely diverse in size, morphology, and genomic organisation.
Like all viruses, phages are simple organisms that consist of a core of genetic material (nucleic acid) surrounded by a protein capsid. The nucleic acid may be either DNA or RNA and may be double-stranded or single-stranded.
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