New Delhi, June 2
Amid a fresh wave of Covid-19, caused by the SARS-CoV2, a new study by researchers at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras showed that viruses follow seasonal and yearly cycles.
The international study, undertaken along with a team of scientists from the universities of Wisconsin-Madison and Texas at Austin, focussed on viruses in freshwater lakes.
The researchers used cutting-edge Machine Learning (ML) tools to study 465 freshwater lake samples from Madison, Wisconsin, collected over more than 20 years -- representing the longest DNA-based monitoring of a natural environment on Earth.
By sequencing all the DNA from the lakes using a method called metagenomics, the researchers reconstructed 1.3 million virus genomes.
The study enabled the researchers to learn how viruses change with the seasons, over decades, and in response to environmental shifts.
“Viruses follow seasonal and yearly cycles, with many reappearing year after year, showing remarkable predictability,” said the researchers in the paper, published in the Nature Microbiology Journal.
“Viruses can ‘steal’ genes from their hosts and repurpose them for their own benefit. Viruses evolve over-time, with some genes becoming more dominant due to natural selection,” they added.