Eaton Heather E, Metcalf Julie, Penny Emily, Tcherepanov Vasily, Upton Chris, Brunetti Craig R
Trent University, Department of Biology, Peterborough, ON, Canada.
Virol J. 2007 Jan 19;4:11. doi: 10.1186/1743-422X-4-11.
Members of the family Iridoviridae can cause severe diseases resulting in significant economic and environmental losses. Very little is known about how iridoviruses cause disease in their host. In the present study, we describe the re-analysis of the Iridoviridae family of complex DNA viruses using a variety of comparative genomic tools to yield a greater consensus among the annotated sequences of its members.
A series of genomic sequence comparisons were made among, and between the Ranavirus and Megalocytivirus genera in order to identify novel conserved ORFs. Of these two genera, the Megalocytivirus genomes required the greatest number of altered annotations. Prior to our re-analysis, the Megalocytivirus species orange-spotted grouper iridovirus and rock bream iridovirus shared 99% sequence identity, but only 82 out of 118 potential ORFs were annotated; in contrast, we predict that these species share an identical complement of genes. These annotation changes allowed the redefinition of the group of core genes shared by all iridoviruses. Seven new core genes were identified, bringing the total number to 26.
Our re-analysis of genomes within the Iridoviridae family provides a unifying framework to understand the biology of these viruses. Further re-defining the core set of iridovirus genes will continue to lead us to a better understanding of the phylogenetic relationships between individual iridoviruses as well as giving us a much deeper understanding of iridovirus replication. In addition, this analysis will provide a better framework for characterizing and annotating currently unclassified iridoviruses.
虹彩病毒科的成员可引发严重疾病，导致重大的经济和环境损失。关于虹彩病毒如何在其宿主中引发疾病，人们知之甚少。在本研究中，我们描述了对复杂DNA病毒虹彩病毒科的重新分析，使用了各种比较基因组工具，以在其成员的注释序列之间达成更大的共识。
为了识别新的保守开放阅读框（ORF），对蛙病毒属和肿大细胞病毒属内以及它们之间进行了一系列基因组序列比较。在这两个属中，肿大细胞病毒基因组需要最多的注释更改。在我们重新分析之前，肿大细胞病毒物种橙点石斑鱼虹彩病毒和条石鲷虹彩病毒的序列同一性为99%，但在118个潜在的ORF中，只有82个得到了注释；相比之下，我们预测这些物种共享相同的基因互补。这些注释更改使得能够重新定义所有虹彩病毒共享的核心基因组。鉴定出七个新的核心基因，使核心基因总数达到26个。
我们对虹彩病毒科内基因组的重新分析提供了一个统一的框架，以理解这些病毒的生物学特性。进一步重新定义虹彩病毒基因的核心集将继续引领我们更好地理解个体虹彩病毒之间的系统发育关系，并使我们对虹彩病毒复制有更深入的了解。此外，该分析将为表征和注释目前未分类的虹彩病毒提供一个更好的框架。
