美国能源部联合基因组研究所Tanja Woyke、Frederik Schulz等研究人员合作利用全球宏基因组学揭示了巨型病毒的多样性以及其与宿主之间的相互作用。相关论文于2020年1月22日在线发表在《自然》上。

在迅速增加的公开访问元基因组数据基础上，研究人员从全球采样点重建了2074个核质大DNA病毒（NCLDV）基因组。这使得系统发育多样性提高了11倍，功能多样性也提高了10倍。分析58023种大型和巨型病毒元基因组的主要衣壳蛋白揭示了其全球分布格局，并强调了它们的普遍性质。被发现的病毒基因组编码了大量的蛋白质，这些蛋白质在光合作用和多种底物转运过程中具有可能的作用，从而揭示了宿主重编程可能作为NCLDV的常见策略。此外，水平基因转移推论将病毒谱系连接到各种真核宿主。研究人员预计，由此揭示的全球范围内的NCLDV巨大多样性将使巨型病毒成为地球生物群系的关键生态系统参与者，并与大多数主要的真核生物谱系存在关联。

研究人员表示，目前关于NCLDV的了解主要来自与原生生物和藻类共培养的病毒分离株。

附：英文原文

Author: Frederik Schulz, Simon Roux, David Paez-Espino, Sean Jungbluth, David Walsh, Vincent J. Denef, Katherine D. McMahon, Konstantinos T. Konstantinidis, Emiley A. Eloe-Fadrosh, Nikos Kyrpides, Tanja Woyke

Issue&Volume: 2020-01-22

Abstract: Current knowledge about the nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDV) is largely derived from viral isolates co-cultivated with protists and algae. Building on the rapidly increasing wealth of publicly available metagenome data, we reconstructed 2,074 NCLDV genomes from sampling sites spanning the globe. This led to an 11-fold increase in phylogenetic diversity and a parallel 10-fold expansion in functional diversity. Analysing 58,023 metagenomic major capsid proteins of large and giant viruses revealed global distribution patterns and underlined their cosmopolitan nature. The discovered viral genomes encoded a wide range of proteins with putative roles in photosynthesis and diverse substrate transport processes, revealing host reprogramming as a likely common strategy in the NCLDV. Furthermore, horizontal gene transfer inferences connected viral lineages to diverse eukaryotic hosts. We anticipate that the vast diversity of NCLDV revealed here on a global scale will establish giant viruses as key ecosystem players across Earth's biomes, associated with most major eukaryotic lineages.

DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-1957-x

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-1957-x