Scientists have discovered that a completely new class of organisms live in people’s mouths
Previously unknown organisms were discovered in the human mouth and intestines by scientists from the USA, Canada and Spain. Because of their elongated, stick-shaped shape, they were called obelisks. They turned out to be the smallest element of genetic material that a cell can recognize. We talked with virologist, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences Vitaly Zverev about how revolutionary this discovery is and what we can expect in the future.
The Nature article says that microbiologists have discovered “creatures” that are smaller in size than viroids, virus-like particles that, in turn, are smaller in size than viruses. Small fragments of RNA were found in the mouth and intestines.
Interestingly, at first the obelisks were also mistaken for viroids, but after checking the genetic sequences, they realized that they were very different.
Researchers believe that they have discovered new particles that are widespread in the microbiomes of various living beings, and this will become a new milestone in science.
The effect of obelisks on human health is unknown. There is a hypothesis that they and their “big brothers” viroids stood at the very beginning of the origin of life on our planet.
“When I give a lecture on biology to students, I explain to them that we still know no more than 10-15 percent of the entire microcosm that exists on Earth,” says academician Vitaly Zverev. – We know more about human viruses, but this does not mean that plants have fewer such viruses. In ancient times, when studying certain phenomena in the world of biology, scientists used only a descriptive method, then a microscope appeared, then an electron microscope, now molecular genetic methods.
The more the methods that we can use improve, the more new representatives of the microworld will be discovered.
What can the discovery of obelisks lead to? Surely they did not appear here yesterday… Surely these RNA particles can be a catalyst for some processes, such as, for example, pathogenic proteins discovered in the 80s — prions. Before their discovery, no one could understand what kind of pathogen causes spongiform encephalopathy, or “mad cow disease,” in cattle. It turned out that this is done by prions, which, like viruses, can increase their numbers using the functions of living cells and lead to brain damage.