Revitalized abyssal ancient viruses trigger viral pandemic in terrestrial soil

Abstract

Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on the earth. Some ancient viruses can revive from permafrost along with melting to infect the current hosts. The “zombie viruses” trapped in the ancient deep-sea sediments become the public health concern due to the environmental changes and human activities in deep oceans. However, the biosecurity risk of benthic viruses has not been explored. Here, two viruses purified from the ancient deep-sea sediments were infectious to the bacteria of terrestrial soil. Furthermore, the benthic viruses were purified from each of 106 deep-sea sediments with 1,900–17,300 years old and then the biothreats of deep-sea viruses to terrestrial soil were evaluated on a global scale. The results revealed that the viruses purified from each of 9 sediments could disturb the native bacterial communities in soil and destroy the soil functions. These viruses with the capacity to invade soil were widely distributed in the abyssal sea. Therefore, our findings highlighted the revitalized risks of deep-sea ancient viruses to terrestrial soil ecosystems for the first time. The biosecurity of deep-sea viruses to terrestrial soil should be assessed before performing deep-sea mining and scientific activities.

Keywords

• Deep-sea sediments
• Viruses
• Bacterial community
• Soil
• Viral pandemic