Turns Out Ebola May Have Been With Us Since the Beginning

There are five known viruses in the genus Ebolavirus. The first of these, Sudan ebolavirus (Sudan Virus, SUDV) was first identified by scientists in 1976 after an outbreak in Nzara, South Sudan. Along with another hemorrhagic fever causing disease, Marburg virus, ebolaviruses are members of the taxonomic family Filoviridae.

It was once believed that filoviruses arose 10,000 years ago with the advent of agriculture but genomic sequencing in recent years has identified endogenous viral elements (EVEs) — fragments of viral genomes present in the DNA of an organism — that indicate that the family is far older than previously thought. New research now pushes the date for the evolutionary age of Filoviruses back much further. From Eureka Alert:

BUFFALO, N.Y. — A new study is helping to rewrite Ebola's family history.

The research shows that filoviruses — a family to which Ebola and its similarly lethal relative, Marburg, belong — are at least 16-23 million years old.

Filoviruses likely existed in the Miocene Epoch, and at that time, the evolutionary lines leading to Ebola and Marburg had already diverged, the study concludes.

The research was published in the journal PeerJ in September. It adds to scientists' developing knowledge about known filoviruses, which experts once believed came into being some 10,000 years ago, coinciding with the rise of agriculture. The new study pushes back the family's age to the time when great apes arose.

"Filoviruses are far more ancient than previously thought," says lead researcher Derek Taylor, PhD, a University at Buffalo professor of biological sciences. "These things have been interacting with mammals for a long time, several million years."

In practical terms, these new findings contribute to the understanding of the history of this lethal family of viruses and may help identify the species serving as reservoirs.

Interesting, so it was maybe here since the first apes (and lots of other monkeys) who, along with guinea pigs and just a few other animals, can't make ascorbic acid (Vitamin C) in their bodies. With the recent threads about Vitamin C and how it protects against or fights ebola, possibly the disease arose because of this deficiency. For those who may not know, plants, insects, animals, fish, and other lifeforms except a very few (and including all primates after lemurs) all create vitamin C in their bodies all day long. For primates, who have a defective gene which stops the body from making ascorbic acid after a few steps (which it repeats fruitlessly for your entire life), this amounts to a major genetic disease, a very dangerous genetic disease. Truth is stranger than friction, and maybe I've hit the snail on the head.

a reply to: Aleister

O god this Vit C crap again.....

Yes its a vital vitamin and can BOOST your immune system but it bloody well isnt a cure for everything especially Ebola

a reply to: Aleister

So what happens if this gene were repaired? What if humans introduced a virus to repair this gene? Or was there a virus that went around to disable this gene in the first place? It seems strange.

a reply to: stormcell

Nah, just genetics. Sometimes things break. This one was a major break, and has put monkeys and apes on the path to eat as much fruit as they can since the beginning. And that's not even enough. Can a major genetic disease be cured by programmed a fix? I'm not medical savvy enough to know.

originally posted by: crazyewok
a reply to: Aleister

O god this Vit C crap again.....

Yes its a vital vitamin and can BOOST your immune system but it bloody well isnt a cure for everything especially Ebola

I'm not saying it's a cure for ebola, just wanted to mention the genetic disease on this thread because of this new news, that ebola-like viruses have been around since we've been around. Wondering if there's a connection. If primates are most susceptible to these families of diseases, maybe there is, but someone with more degrees than me (33?) could answer this.

From the ebb ola time?

So thanks to Aleister I made a random connection. This is completely crazy, but if he says it may have been around in primates for so long (admitted speculation) what if it makes people more social? Interesting way of increasing vectors.

Primates are well known for being social though. I don't see a reason it would need to hijack them to make them even more so. Here's a real long stretch; what if it makes them desire to travel? Ebola with a huge fatality margin needs to spread fast. Otherwise it would burn itself out before it got off the ground.

Strange how a virus that is so lethal is supposedly so hard to contract. Simple logic says it should have burned itself out in no time flat.

Anyway, off to tinker with my tinfoil hat

Ye maybe its just bin chillin and this really is just mother nature taking the planet back its a shame that evryone should be held responsible for the selfish actions of a few but look at what humans have done to the planet...

a reply to: theantediluvian

Hmmm. Someone didn't do their homework. Hope it's the reporter not the researchers.

Posted April, 2014: Unexpected Inheritance: Human Genome Contains Ebola Virus Sequences.

Unexpected Inheritance: Multiple Integrations of Ancient Bornavirus and Ebolavirus/Marburgvirus Sequences in Vertebrate Genomes

….In 19 of the tested vertebrate species, we discovered as many as 80 high-confidence examples of genomic DNA sequences that appear to be derived, as long ago as 40 million years, from ancestral members of 4 currently circulating virus families with single strand RNA genomes. Surprisingly, almost all of the sequences are related to only two families in the Order Mononegavirales: the Bornaviruses and the Filoviruses, which cause lethal neurological disease and hemorrhagic fevers, respectively. ...

a reply to: Aleister

We are composed of millions of cooperating viruses' and bacterias' DNA - having such genes does NOT mean we have a genetic disease. Many scientists think this makes us "superorganisms."

originally posted by: soficrow
a reply to: Aleister

We are composed of millions of cooperating viruses' and bacterias' DNA - having such genes does NOT mean we have a genetic disease. Many scientists think this makes us "superorganisms."

Unrelated to what I said. The genetic disease is that primates (humans, other apes, monkeys, wrestlers) cannot make ascorbic acid ("vitamin C"), although their body is always trying to make it (we can make 4/5ths of it, and the next step is where the mechanism broke - hence 'genetic disease'). Almost every other life-form can make it, and does, constantly.

a reply to: Aleister

Sorry, misunderstood. ....Do you know what benefits that inability confers? There will be something if you look.

a reply to: soficrow

Good question. I'm not a medical expert, so I have no idea. Probably none, I'd imagine, but wouldn't bet on it. A poster on another thread said vitamin C has over 10,000 uses (it builds connective tissue, for one thing, that's 9,999 to go).

a reply to: Aleister

....Good question. I'm not a medical expert, so I have no idea. Probably none, I'd imagine, but wouldn't bet on it.

Don't bet on it. Such "modifications" DO confer benefits - like sickle cell anemia confers immunity to malaria and only occasionally causes disease. ....Seems nature does a natural "risk-benefit analysis."

originally posted by: rickymouse
From the ebb ola time?

OMG