Scientists discover 230 new giant viruses that shape the life and health of the ocean

Giant viruses play a role in the survival of unicellular marine organizations called Protists. These include algae, amoeba and flagellates that form the base of oceanic food fabrics. And as these protists constitute an important part of the food chain, these large DNA viruses are often responsible for various risks for public health, including the proliferations of harmful algae.

A new study by scientists from the Rosenstiel School of Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Science can help to untangle the many types of viruses present in our sailing and oceans. This knowledge could help local leaders better prepare for harmful flowering of harmful algae can have an impact on their coast or if other viruses are present in berries, rivers or local lakes.

By using high performance computer methods, the researchers have identified 230 new giant virus In the sets of marine metagenomic data accessible to the public and characterized their functions.

Published in the journal NPJ NPJ virus, Their results include the discovery of new genomes of giant viruses previously unknown in the literature. Within these genomes, 530 new functional proteins have been characterized, including nine proteins involved in photosynthesis. This indicates that these viruses can be able to handle their host and the photosynthesis process during infection.

“Better understanding the diversity and the role of giant viruses in the ocean and how they interact with algae and other ocean microbes, we can predict and possibly manage Harmful algae flourishWho are dangers for human health in Florida as well as worldwide, “said Mohammad Moniruzzaman, co-author of the study and assistant professor in the Department of Marine and Ecology Biology.” Giant viruses are often the main cause of death for many phytoplanted sources, which serve as the basis for the base of the ocean and food sources. The new functions found in giant viruses could have biotechnological potential, as some of these functions could represent new enzymes. “”

Until recently, giant viruses were largely not detected by scientific methods due to limitations of bioinformatics pipelines. The researchers have created an innovative tool called Beren (Boinformatics tool for recovery of the eukaryotic virus from environmental metagenomas), designed to identify giant virus genomes in public sequencing data sets of extended public DNA.

“We have discovered that giant viruses have genes involved in Cellular functions such as carbon metabolism and photosynthesis – found by tradition only in cellular organizations, said Benjamin Minch, the main author of the study and a doctoral student in the Department of Marine Biology and Ecology at the Rosenstiel School. “This suggests that giant viruses play a disproportionate role in manipulating the metabolism of their host during the infection and influence of marine biogeochemistry.”

The authors used the PEGASUS supercomputer from the University of Miami to the Frost Institute for Data Science and Computing (IDSC) to treat and assemble large metagenomas – often exceeding a gigabase per library – allowing the reconstruction of hundreds of microbial community libraries.

“This study has enabled us to create a framework to improve existing tools to detect new viruses that could help our ability to monitor pollution and pathogens in our sails.” Mind added.

The search team has downloaded DNA sequencing data from nine major global ocean sampling projects extending from the pole to the pole. Using Beren, they recovered the genomes from the giant virus from the data. The genomes were then annotated using databases of genes accessible to the public to characterize the functions coded by these viruses. These genomes have been compared to all representatives of the giant virus currently available to identify new functions.

The Beren program used to facilitate this search fills a gap in the field of research by providing an easy -to -use tool to identify and classify giant viruses in sequencing data sets. Beren is available for anyone can be used and can be downloaded to: gitlab.com/benminch1/beren

The study entitled, “Expansion of the genomic and functional diversity of giant viruses of the global ocean,“was published on April 21, 2025 in the journal NPJ NPJ virus. The authors are Benjamin Minch and Mohammad Moniruzzaman of the Marine, Atmospheric and Earth Sciences at the University of Miami Rosenstiel.