We hate them, but they are the basis of life on Earth: what will happen if all viruses on the planet disappear

It seems that viruses only exist to bring suffering to humanity. However, if they all suddenly disappeared, our world would be completely different - and far from better. Why do we really need viruses and why we cannot survive without them, the publication said with the BBC.

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Over the millennia, viruses have claimed a huge number of lives and markedly changed the population of the planet. Between 1918 and 50 million people fell victim to the Spanish flu epidemic in 100, and in the 200th century almost XNUMX million died from smallpox alone.

The COVID-19 pandemic is just one of a never-ending series of deadly virus attacks.

If by magic it was possible to immediately and permanently destroy all viruses, many people would obviously be delighted. However, this would be a fatal mistake and even more dangerous than any pandemic.

“If all the viruses suddenly disappear, the world will be a beautiful place for about a day and a half, and then we will all die,” said Tony Goldberg, an epidemiologist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

"The benefits of viruses undoubtedly outweigh the harm"

The vast majority of viruses are not pathogenic for humans; many of them play an important role in the formation of the ecosystem.

Others are responsible for the life of individual organisms - from fungi and plants to insects and humans.

“It's the perfect balance,” says Susanna López Charreton, a virologist at the National Autonomous University of Mexico. “Without viruses, we would be dead.”

Many do not even realize what a huge role viruses play in the existence of life on Earth, because we are usually focused on the trouble they cause to humanity.

By imagining what the world would be like without viruses, we can better understand not only their role in our survival, but also how little we know about them.

First, scientists don't even know exactly how many viruses there are. In official classifications, there are thousands of them, while in fact there are quite possibly millions of them.

“We know so little because science is predominantly studying pathogens, that is, pathogens,” says Marilyn Russink, a virologist ecologist at Pennsylvania State University.

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It is also unknown to scientists what percentage of all viruses is dangerous to humans.

“When you look at big numbers, statistically the percentage of dangerous viruses approaches zero,” said Curtis Suttle, a virologist ecologist at the University of British Columbia. “Almost all existing viruses are not disease-causing for us.”

Support the ecosystem

We know that phages or viruses that infect bacteria are extremely important. These are the main predators in the world of bacteria, hence the name "eaters".

Phages regulate the population of bacteria in the ocean, perhaps in any other ecosystem on the planet. If these viruses suddenly disappear, the balance will immediately be upset: some populations of bacteria will grow explosively, while others, unable to withstand the competition, will disappear.

This would be a great tragedy for the ocean, where bacteria make up over 90% of all living material. They produce about half of the oxygen on the planet, a process that viruses are also responsible for.

These viruses kill about five of all oceanic microbes and about half of all bacteria in the ocean every day. That is, others - they ensure that oxygen-producing plankton have enough nutrients for rapid photosynthesis, and also support a significant part of life on Earth.

“If we didn’t have death, we wouldn’t have life either, since it depends entirely on the recycling of matter,” Suttle explains. “And viruses play a major role in that.”

Researchers studying insect pests have found that viruses are also critical to controlling species populations.

If a certain species begins to multiply strongly, the virus inhibits this process.

It is a natural part of ecosystems. The process called "kill the winner" is common to many other species, including humans, as evidenced by pandemics.

If viruses suddenly disappeared, competitive species would do well at the expense of others.

“We would quickly lose biodiversity on the planet,” Suttle said. “We would have a few species left that would take over everything.”

Some organisms literally need viruses to survive. Scientists suspect that viruses play an important role in the process of digestion in cows. They convert the cellulose from the grass into sugar, which is metabolized and converted into body mass and milk.

Researchers believe that viruses are an essential part of a healthy human and animal microbiome.

“These things are not well understood, but we are finding more and more examples of viruses interacting closely in different ecosystems, both in humans and in the environment,” says Suttle.

Russink and her colleagues found evidence of this. In one study, they worked with a colony of microscopic fungi living with a particular type of grass in Yellowstone National Park and found that the virus allows the grass to more successfully withstand geothermal ground temperatures.

“When all three elements are present (virus, fungus and grass), then grass can grow on hot soil,” Russink says. “The fungus alone, without the virus, is not capable of doing this.”

Protect people

Infection with certain benign viruses helps to get rid of some pathogens and people.

GB-virus C, a distant relative of West Nile virus and dengue fever, slows down the development of AIDS in HIV-positive people.

Scientists have found, among other things, that GB-virus C reduces the risk of death in people infected with Ebola.

And herpes makes mice less susceptible to certain bacterial infections, particularly tambourine plague and listeriosis.

Although it is impossible to test this in humans due to ethical issues, the researchers suggest that the human body would have reacted in a similar way.

Although infection with herpes viruses is "generally considered purely pathogenic," evidence suggests that herpes does indeed enter into a "symbiotic relationship" with the host, conferring certain immune benefits.

Without viruses, we and many other species would be more prone to disease.

Viruses are also among the most promising treatments for certain diseases. Phage therapy, actively studied in the Soviet Union as early as the 1920s, uses viruses to fight bacterial infections.

Now this area of ​​research is growing rapidly. After all, treatment with viruses is better not only because of increased resistance to antibiotics, but also because of the ability to fine-tune the therapeutic effect without indiscriminately destroying the entire population of bacteria, as antibiotics do.

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“Viruses have saved many lives when antibiotics were ineffective,” Suttle said.

Oncolytic viruses, which selectively infect and destroy cancer cells, are increasingly being considered a less toxic and more effective cancer treatment.

Such viruses act "like microscopically guided missiles that deliver targeted strikes against cells we don't need," explains Goldberg.

“Viruses will help us create the next generation of therapeutic agents,” the scientist is sure.

Since viruses are constantly multiplying and mutating, they hold great potential for genetic innovation for other organisms.

Viruses multiply by penetrating into the cells of the owner and capturing their reproduction tools. If this happens in the germ cell (egg or sperm), the viral code can be passed on to the next generation and permanently integrated.

“All organisms that can be infected with viruses are able to suck out viral genes and use them to their advantage,” explains Goldberg.

And, consequently, the disappearance of viruses will affect the evolutionary potential of all life on the planet, including Homo sapiens.

Virus genes make up approximately 8% of the human genome, while mammalian genomes have an average of about 100 remnants of genes derived from viruses.

The viral code usually remains an inert piece of DNA, but sometimes it gives new and useful, even very important functions.

For example, in 2018, two research groups separately made a fascinating discovery. The gene of viral origin encodes a protein that plays a key role in the formation of long-term memory, moving information between the cells of the nervous system.

However, a striking example concerns the evolution of the mammalian placenta and the timing of gene expression during pregnancy in women.

The ability of a person to give birth to living offspring arose thanks to the genetic code of ancient retroviruses, which our ancestors were infected with millions of years ago.

The authors of this discovery noted in the publication PLOS Biology: “It is quite possible to assume that if it were not for the pandemics of retroviruses that our distant ancestors experienced millions of years ago, modern human pregnancy would be very different, and perhaps would not exist at all.”

Experts believe that such key events can be tracked in all forms of multicellular life. “Obviously, many features remain unknown,” Suttle suggests.

After all, the more we learn about viruses, and not just pathogens, the better we can use them to our advantage.

In addition, understanding viral diversity will help us better understand how our planet, its ecosystems, and our bodies function.

According to Suttle, “it is very important for our own good to understand what is happening in this world.”

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