Székely Anna J, Breitbart Mya
Department of Ecology and Genetics/Limnology, Uppsala University, Uppsala 752 36, Sweden College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St Petersburg 33701, FL, USA
College of Marine Science, University of South Florida, St Petersburg 33701, FL, USA.
FEMS Microbiol Lett. 2016 Mar;363(6). doi: 10.1093/femsle/fnw027. Epub 2016 Feb 5.
Single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) phages are profoundly different from tailed phages in many aspects including the nature and size of their genome, virion size and morphology, mutation rate, involvement in horizontal gene transfer, infection dynamics and cell lysis mechanisms. Despite the importance of ssDNA phages as molecular biology tools and model systems, the environmental distribution and ecological roles of these phages have been largely unexplored. Viral metagenomics and other culture-independent viral diversity studies have recently challenged the perspective of tailed, double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) phages, dominance by demonstrating the prevalence of ssDNA phages in diverse habitats. However, the differences between ssDNA and dsDNA phages also substantially limit the efficacy of simultaneously assessing the abundance and diversity of these two phage groups. Here we provide an overview of the major differences between ssDNA and tailed dsDNA phages that may influence their effects on bacterial communities. Furthermore, through the analysis of 181 published metaviromes we demonstrate the environmental distribution of ssDNA phages and present an analysis of the methodological biases that distort their study through metagenomics.
单链DNA（ssDNA）噬菌体在许多方面与有尾噬菌体截然不同，包括其基因组的性质和大小、病毒体大小和形态、突变率、在水平基因转移中的作用、感染动态以及细胞裂解机制。尽管ssDNA噬菌体作为分子生物学工具和模型系统很重要，但这些噬菌体的环境分布和生态作用在很大程度上尚未得到探索。病毒宏基因组学和其他不依赖培养的病毒多样性研究最近通过证明ssDNA噬菌体在不同栖息地的普遍存在，对有尾双链DNA（dsDNA）噬菌体占主导地位的观点提出了挑战。然而，ssDNA噬菌体和dsDNA噬菌体之间的差异也极大地限制了同时评估这两类噬菌体丰度和多样性的功效。在此，我们概述了ssDNA噬菌体和有尾dsDNA噬菌体之间可能影响它们对细菌群落作用的主要差异。此外，通过对181篇已发表的病毒宏基因组的分析，我们展示了ssDNA噬菌体的环境分布，并对通过宏基因组学扭曲其研究的方法学偏差进行了分析。
