Stealing for a Sting

Have you ever wondered how insects like wasps developed toxins that can sting, paralyze, or even kill their hapless victims? Well Annie Bezier of France's Université François Rabelais wondered the same thing. Her research of wasp ovaries led her to find multiple genes that encoded for producing the various polydnavirus that are injected into prey. These polynavirus particles aren't quite virus's, but they are pretty close.

The interesting part about all this is that when Annie Bezier compared the various genes responsible for making these polydnavirus in wasps to all other known virus's. Much to her surprise she found a pretty close match. Over 20 of the genes responsible for encoding these polydnavirus are near identical to a group of virus that prey on insects like moths.

By comparing various known species of wasps, Annies team was able to conclude that about 100 million years ago, the polydnavirus that wasps now use were once infecting them. Horizontal transfer of genes like this is very common in microbes where once germ will pass on a higher fitness gene to another, but is very rarely documented between animals and viruses.

While this knowledge doesn't cure diseases or solve any immediate problems facing man kind, it does however open Pandora’s Box into a more broad view of virus host relationships. Think of how many different chemicals we create with bacteria by inserting genetic material into them that alters the products they produce as bi-products. In what ways can we use viruses to our advantage? It's already possible to insert genes into animals that they are missing via viruses, but what about actually adding a new type of gene into something?

Do you think it is possible to tame virus's to do our bidding like an attack dog? Is it possible to ultimately absorb viral genetic material into our own bodies making us more evolutionarily fit? I hope so, it’s about time I got to use a stinger too.

Update:

So horizontal transfer of genes is commonly seen in bacteria when they sort of "trade" genetic info much like sexual recombination. For example, an E.cola cell could trade the info in its plasmid that codes for antibacterial resistance.
What they think happened between the virus and the wasp is that infected wasps would still reproduce and the virus's would pass on to their children. Much like how bacteria are becoming more resistant to antibiotics the wasps might have become slowly more capable of dealing with the virus but were incapable of actually ridding themselves of it. The article made a comparison to having a robber come in your house then stealing his gun and making him rob other people.

-Nick Cline (B)