The First Discovered Vampire Virus Hooks Onto Other Viruses — Meet the ‘MiniFlayer’

Viruses kill millions of people each year, and now it seems that even other viruses aren’t safe from their deadly cunning.

New research has identified the first ever “vampire” viruses, tiny organisms that bite and latch onto the neck of other viruses as part of their effort to infect cells. The viruses were found in a soil sample collected near Poolesville, Maryland.

“When I saw it, I was like, ‘I can’t believe this,’” said Tagide deCarvalho, assistant director of the University of Maryland, Baltimore County’s College of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, and co-author of a paper describing the discovery, in a press release about the findings. “No one has ever seen a bacteriophage —or any other virus— attach to another virus.”

Scientists have seen viruses that work together, like when one virus (called a satellite) relies on another (known as a helper) to build its protective shell or replicate its DNA. But the new virus described by deCarvalho and her colleagues (which they named MiniFlayer) literally attaches to the helper (dubbed MindFlayer) at the point where the capsid meets the tail. Like the vampires of myth, they go for the neck.

Some viruses that did not have a satellite attached when researchers observed them still showed evidence of having been used in the past: In other words, the MindFlayers had the virus equivalent of bite marks. 

When the scientists examined the genomes of MiniFlayer, MindFlayer and their infected host cells, they found that the MiniFlayer, unlike other satellite viruses, contained no gene for integrating into its host. That means that the virus is entirely reliant on its MindFlayer helper when it comes to entering a cell. 

“Attaching now made total sense because otherwise, how are you going to guarantee that you are going to enter into the cell at the same time?” said co-author Ivan Erill. 

It appears that like the myth of the vampire, the relationship between MiniFlayer and MindFlayer is very old, suggesting that other satellites and helpers with similar symbiotic relationships are out there yet to be discovered. 

“This satellite has been tuning in and optimizing its genome to be associated with the helper for, I would say, at least 100 million years,” said Erill.