The Laptev Virus

Drew stood up, possibly hoping to distract attention from Shane by drawing everyone’s eyes to his tall, lean stature. “As it turns out,” he said, his voice strong and confident, “the increased acidity of the ocean is not only changing the morphology of the capsid, removing that layer of hydrocarbons, but it’s also seeping in through the lipid bilayer that lines the capsid, and reaching the viral DNA, which it primes to get it ready to infect host cells.”

“Whoa, I’m sorry to interrupt again here,” said Angela, making a ‘time out’ sign with her hands, “but you just lost me. Would you mind backtracking and saying some of that in English, please.”

Tally smiled and took over the explanation. “Viruses, you see, aren’t active aggressors like many pathogenic bacteria—the ones that make you sick, ‘cause you know that all bacteria don’t make you sick, right? People think that all bacteria are bad, and the truth is that the vast majority of them are not at all interested in eating us.”

Angela smiled.

“Okay, cool, so bacteria, the pathogenic ones, they attack their way into cells, kind of like biting or tearing their way in, except, of course, they don’t have mouths. But viruses, they aren’t alive or anything so they can’t fight their way into the cell they want to infect. Instead they mimic a chemical compound that the cell would normally take in through its membrane.”

“Like a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Shane, and then changing his voice to a higher pitch he said, “Let me in, let me in, little pig, I’ve brought you something nice to eat.”

Sarah was about to ask Shane to leave the room, but Angela chuckled and placed her hand lightly on Sarah’s forearm. Sarah immediately understood that Angela was reassuring her that Shane’s behavior was not bothering her. Sarah glanced at Rhonda who also gave her a small nod. They were all enjoying the conversation.

“I think I get it,” said Angela, still smiling. “So you’re saying that the Laptev virus, if it had never came in contact with ocean water, it might not have made anyone sick?”

Tally nodded. “Well, that’s a bit of an oversimplification, but yes, that’s the general drift.”

“And that means,” said Rhonda, “that any other drilling sites in the Arctic could still be in danger as the ocean’s water could wear away at the capsids.”

“Right.”

“But what I don’t get,” said Angela, “is that the ice core sample they took wasn’t from under the ocean. It was from the permafrost which was under several feet of ice. So how did salt water get in there?”

“If the ice core sample had been taken far from the coastline, perhaps there would not have been an opportunity for it to mix with ocean water, you are right. But if you look at the geology of the area,” said Drew, pulling up a map of the area on his laptop screen, “the permafrost, which has been frozen for thousands of years, sits right up against the edge of the ocean. And we know the sample was thawing, which is why it broke so easily. If you look here, you can see that there’s ice on the top of the ocean, but underneath, it is all melting. Russ confirmed all of this when we spoke.”

Angela returned to her seat and began writing furiously in her notebook again.

“Exactly,” said Tally. “As best we can tell, the crews who worked there in the previous seasons were fortunate, but their luck may not hold out. Anyway, to confirm our hypothesis that the increasingly acidic ocean water could be affecting the virus, we decided to run another experiment.”

Sarah noticed Angela nod to Oscar in approval and felt a surge of gratefulness toward her investigators who were really shining in their presentations. For a completely impromptu meeting with these important people, things were going remarkably well.

“Working in a laminar flow hood in the BSL-4 lab, we isolated some virus particles and suspended them in ice, then ran a stream of ocean water over the ice. Then we exposed some HeLa cells to the viruses and measured the degree of virulence,” said Tally.

“It sounds… dangerous,” said Angela.

“Well, not that much, actually. The laminar flow at the entrance of the hood keeps all the microorganisms inside. And we were wearing full protective suits as well. So it was okay. But anyway, at first it didn’t work. We checked all of the cells and none got infected. So the next day we repeated the experiment except we added some water vapor to the mix, and bingo! The viral particles became virulent and infected the cells. So, the fact that there’s ice melting, and some of it must also sublime, you know, go straight from ice to vapor, is also important in increasing the pathogenicity of the virus.”