Senčilo Ana, Roine Elina
Department of Biosciences and Institute of Biotechnology, University of Helsinki Helsinki, Finland.
Front Microbiol. 2014 Mar 12;5:84. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2014.00084. eCollection 2014.
Tailed viruses are the most common isolates infecting prokaryotic hosts residing in hypersaline environments. Archaeal tailed viruses represent only a small portion of all characterized tailed viruses of prokaryotes. But even this small dataset revealed that archaeal tailed viruses have many similarities to their counterparts infecting bacteria, the bacteriophages. Shared functional homologs and similar genome organizations suggested that all microbial tailed viruses have common virion architectural and assembly principles. Recent structural studies have provided evidence justifying this thereby grouping archaeal and bacterial tailed viruses into a single lineage. Currently there are 17 haloarchaeal tailed viruses with entirely sequenced genomes. Nine viruses have at least one close relative among the 17 viruses and, according to the similarities, can be divided into three groups. Two other viruses share some homologs and therefore are distantly related, whereas the rest of the viruses are rather divergent (or singletons). Comparative genomics analysis of these viruses offers a glimpse into the genetic diversity and structure of haloarchaeal tailed virus communities.
有尾病毒是感染高盐环境中细菌宿主的最常见分离株。古菌有尾病毒仅占所有已鉴定的原核生物有尾病毒的一小部分。但即使是这个小数据集也表明，古菌有尾病毒与其感染细菌的对应物噬菌体有许多相似之处。共享的功能同源物和相似的基因组组织表明，所有微生物有尾病毒都有共同的病毒体结构和组装原则。最近的结构研究提供了证据支持这一点，从而将古菌和细菌有尾病毒归为一个单一谱系。目前有17种嗜盐古菌有尾病毒的基因组已完全测序。其中9种病毒在这17种病毒中至少有一个近亲，根据相似性可分为三组。另外两种病毒共享一些同源物，因此关系较远，而其余病毒则差异较大（或为单例）。对这些病毒的比较基因组学分析让我们得以一窥嗜盐古菌有尾病毒群落的遗传多样性和结构。
