Sequencing, Not Culture, Proved Fast Way To Find New Hot Spring Virus

Abstract

Culture-independent methods are making it possible to discover and partly characterize viruses and their hosts straight from hot springs such as those in Yellowstone National Park (YNP)—short-circuiting the traditional approach that depends on first growing samples in vitro, according to Rebecca Hochstein at Montana State University (MSU) in Bozeman and her collaborators. In this way, they discovered the Acidianus tailed spindle virus (ATSV), which infects archaeal species found in the Crater Hills Thermal Basin of YNP. Details appeared 13 January 2016 in the Journal of Virology (doi:10.1128/JVI.03098–15).