Description of viral assemblages associated with the  Gorgonia ventalina  holobiont

There is no author summary for this article yet. Authors can add summaries to their articles on ScienceOpen to make them more accessible to a non-specialist audience.

Abstract

The diversity and function of viruses in coral holobionts has only recently received attention. The non-reef building gorgonian octocoral, Gorgonia ventalina, is a major constituent of Caribbean reefs. We investigated viral communities associated with G. ventalina tissues to understand their role in gorgonian ecology. Pyrosequencing was used to prepare a total of 514,632 sequence reads of DNA- and RNA-based mixed-community viral genomes (metaviromes). RNA viral assemblages were comprised of primarily unidentifiable reads, with most matching host transcripts and other RNA metaviromes. DNA metaviromes were similar between healthy and diseased tissues and comprised of contiguous sequences (contigs) that matched primarily metazoan and bacterial proteins. Only ~5% of contigs matched viral proteins that were primarily cyanophage and viruses of Chlorella and Ostreococcus. Our results confirm that DNA and RNA viruses comprise a component of the gorgonian holobiont, suggesting that they may play a role in the ecology of G. ventalina.

Related collections

Most cited references 16

Record: found
Abstract: not found
Article: not found

Viral mortality of marine bacteria and cyanobacteria

Lita M. Proctor, Jed Fuhrman (1990)

0 comments Cited 168 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: found

Is Open Access

Threatened Corals Provide Underexplored Microbial Habitats

Shinichi Sunagawa, Cheryl M. Woodley, Mónica Medina (2010)

Contemporary in-depth sequencing of environmental samples has provided novel insights into microbial community structures, revealing that their diversity had been previously underestimated. Communities in marine environments are commonly composed of a few dominant taxa and a high number of taxonomically diverse, low-abundance organisms. However, studying the roles and genomic information of these “rare” organisms remains challenging, because little is known about their ecological niches and the environmental conditions to which they respond. Given the current threat to coral reef ecosystems, we investigated the potential of corals to provide highly specialized habitats for bacterial taxa including those that are rarely detected or absent in surrounding reef waters. The analysis of more than 350,000 small subunit ribosomal RNA (16S rRNA) sequence tags and almost 2,000 nearly full-length 16S rRNA gene sequences revealed that rare seawater biosphere members are highly abundant or even dominant in diverse Caribbean corals. Closely related corals (in the same genus/family) harbored similar bacterial communities. At higher taxonomic levels, however, the similarities of these communities did not correlate with the phylogenetic relationships among corals, opening novel questions about the evolutionary stability of coral-microbial associations. Large proportions of OTUs (28.7–49.1%) were unique to the coral species of origin. Analysis of the most dominant ribotypes suggests that many uncovered bacterial taxa exist in coral habitats and await future exploration. Our results indicate that coral species, and by extension other animal hosts, act as specialized habitats of otherwise rare microbes in marine ecosystems. Here, deep sequencing provided insights into coral microbiota at an unparalleled resolution and revealed that corals harbor many bacterial taxa previously not known. Given that two of the coral species investigated are listed as threatened under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, our results add an important microbial diversity-based perspective to the significance of conserving coral reefs.

0 comments Cited 142 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

Record: found
Abstract: found
Article: not found

Assembly of viral metagenomes from yellowstone hot springs.

David Mead, Thomas Schoenfeld, Ángeles Patterson … (2008)

Thermophilic viruses were reported decades ago; however, knowledge of their diversity, biology, and ecological impact is limited. Previous research on thermophilic viruses focused on cultivated strains. This study examined metagenomic profiles of viruses directly isolated from two mildly alkaline hot springs, Bear Paw (74 degrees C) and Octopus (93 degrees C). Using a new method for constructing libraries from picograms of DNA, nearly 30 Mb of viral DNA sequence was determined. In contrast to previous studies, sequences were assembled at 50% and 95% identity, creating composite contigs up to 35 kb and facilitating analysis of the inherent heterogeneity in the populations. Lowering the assembly identity reduced the estimated number of viral types from 1,440 and 1,310 to 548 and 283, respectively. Surprisingly, the diversity of viral species in these springs approaches that in moderate-temperature environments. While most known thermophilic viruses have a chronic, nonlytic infection lifestyle, analysis of coding sequences suggests lytic viruses are more common in geothermal environments than previously thought. The 50% assembly included one contig with high similarity and perfect synteny to nine genes from Pyrobaculum spherical virus (PSV). In fact, nearly all the genes of the 28-kb genome of PSV have apparent homologs in the metagenomes. Similarities to thermoacidophilic viruses isolated on other continents were limited to specific open reading frames but were equally strong. Nearly 25% of the reads showed significant similarity between the hot springs, suggesting a common subterranean source. To our knowledge, this is the first application of metagenomics to viruses of geothermal origin.

0 comments Cited 83 times – based on 0 reviews      Review now

Bookmark

All references

Author and article information

Contributors

I. Hewson: +1-607-2550151 , +1-607-2553804 , hewson@cornell.edu

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Coral Reefs

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Coral Reefs

Title: Coral Reefs (Online)

Publisher: Springer-Verlag (Berlin/Heidelberg )

ISSN (Print): 0722-4028

ISSN (Electronic): 1432-0975

Publication date (Electronic): 29 December 2011

Publication date (Print): 2012

Volume: 31

Issue: 2

Pages: 487-491

Affiliations

[1 ]GRID grid.5386.8, ISNI 000000041936877X, Department of Microbiology, , Cornell University, ; Wing Hall 403, Ithaca, NY 14850 USA

[2 ]GRID grid.5386.8, ISNI 000000041936877X, Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, , Cornell University, ; Ithaca, NY 14850 USA

Author notes

Communicated by Biology Editor Dr. Ruth Gates

Article

Publisher ID: 864

DOI: 10.1007/s00338-011-0864-x

PMC ID: 7087884

PubMed ID: 32214633

SO-VID: c47ef3ed-e447-41a2-886f-6bedca03bc0e

License:

This article is made available via the PMC Open Access Subset for unrestricted research re-use and secondary analysis in any form or by any means with acknowledgement of the original source. These permissions are granted for the duration of the World Health Organization (WHO) declaration of COVID-19 as a global pandemic.