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Back in 2018, scientists from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the
Department of Energy’s Joint Genome Institute (JGI) made an unexpected discovery
in Harvard Forest—a roughly six-square-mile area west of Boston. While trying to
understand how microbes reacted to warming soil due to climate change, the
researchers stumbled upon a collection of “giant” viruses many times larger than
typical viral specimens.

How big, you ask? Well, where viruses—like Covid-19, for example—might measure
anywhere from 50 to 140 nanometers in width, the discoveries from Harvard Forest
measured up to 635 nanometers.

Fast forward five years, and a new preprint published last week in bioRxiv
details how these gargantuan viruses are even stranger than just their atypical
size might suggest. According to the paper (which has yet to go through peer
review), the scientists did spot the tell-tale 20-sided icosahedral shapes that
separate viruses from virus-like particles. But in the giant viruses, these
shapes contained “structural modifications that had not been described before
including tubular appendages, modified vertices, tails, and capsids [shells]
consisting of multiple layers or internal channels.”

The researchers organized these viruses into categories by their strange shapes,
creating groups named “turtle,” “gorgon,” “supernova,” and “Christmas star.”
These different shapes mean that viruses could interact with hosts in ways
previously unknown to science.

Mimi-like (amoeba-infecting virus) [b] supernova [c]

haircut [d] turtle [e] plumber [f] Christmas star.' expand=''
crop='original'][/image]

To image these strange viruses, scientists sent samples to the Max Planck
Institute in Germany, where they were examined using transmission electron
microscopy—a process that leverages electrons to magnify objects.

“Amazingly, we found that a few hundred grams of forest soil contained a greater
diversity of capsid morphotypes than that of all hitherto isolated giant viruses
combined,” the paper says. “This observation is even more astounding when
considering that we imaged only an infinitesimally small fraction of the viral
diversity present in these soil samples.”

These are not the first “giant” viruses ever recorded. In fact, the world
record-holder for largest virus belongs to Pithovirus sibericum, a 1,500
nanometer-wide virus resurrected from 30,000-year-old ice back in 2014 (which is
arguably uncomfortably close to the plot of The Thing). But this discovery shows
just how varied these giant viruses can be.

"The cornucopia of viral morphotypes found in Harvard Forest alone questions our
current understanding of the virosphere and its structural heterogeneity,” the
paper says. “This fascinating window into the complex world of soil viruses
leave little doubt that the high genetic diversity of giant viruses is matched
by diverse and previously unimaginable particle structures, whose origins and
functions remain to be studied.”

The world of viruses and their larger ecological role remain a mystery, but with
new tools like transmission electron microscopy, that mystery may be solved
sooner than expected.

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