Novel viral genomes identified from six metagenomes reveal wide distribution of archaeal viruses and high viral diversity in terrestrial hot springs

Sóley Ruth Islin, Peter Menzel, Anders Krogh, Mark Young, Xu Peng

33 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Limited by culture-dependent methods the number of viruses identified from thermophilic Archaea and Bacteria is still very small. In this study we retrieved viral sequences from six hot spring metagenomes isolated worldwide, revealing a wide distribution of four archaeal viral families, Ampullaviridae, Bicaudaviridae, Lipothrixviridae and Rudiviridae. Importantly, we identified 10 complete or near complete viral genomes allowing, for the first time, an assessment of genome conservation and evolution of the Ampullaviridae family as well as Sulfolobus Monocaudavirus 1 (SMV1)-related viruses. Among the novel genomes, one belongs to a putative thermophilic virus infecting the bacterium Hydrogenobaculum, for which no virus has been reported in the literature. Moreover, a high viral diversity was observed in the metagenomes, especially among the Lipothrixviridae, as indicated by the large number of unique contigs and the lack of a completely assembled genome for this family. This is further supported by the large number of novel genes in the complete and partial genomes showing no sequence similarities to public databases. CRISPR analysis revealed hundreds of novel CRISPR loci and thousands of novel CRISPR spacers from each metagenome, reinforcing the notion of high viral diversity in the thermal environment.

Original languageEnglish
JournalEnvironmental Microbiology
Volume18
Issue number3
Pages (from-to)863-874
Number of pages12
ISSN1462-2912
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Mar 2016

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