Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, East Boothbay, ME, USA.
Department of Physiology, Genetics, and Microbiology, University of Alicante, Alicante, Spain.
Nat Rev Microbiol. 2020 Dec;18(12):705-716. doi: 10.1038/s41579-020-00444-0. Epub 2020 Oct 6.
Viruses are extremely diverse and modulate important biological and ecological processes globally. However, much of viral diversity remains uncultured and yet to be discovered. Several powerful culture-independent tools, in particular metagenomics, have substantially advanced virus discovery. Among those tools is single-virus genomics, which yields sequenced reference genomes from individual sorted virus particles without the need for cultivation. This new method complements virus culturing and metagenomic approaches and its advantages include targeted investigation of specific virus groups and investigation of genomic microdiversity within viral populations. In this Review, we provide a brief history of single-virus genomics, outline how this emergent method has facilitated advances in virus ecology and discuss its current limitations and future potential. Finally, we address how this method may synergistically intersect with other single-virus and single-cell approaches.
病毒具有极高的多样性，在全球范围内调节着重要的生物和生态过程。然而，仍有大量的病毒多样性尚未被培养和发现。几种强大的非培养依赖性工具，特别是宏基因组学，极大地促进了病毒的发现。这些工具中包括单病毒基因组学，它可以从单个分离的病毒粒子中获得测序的参考基因组，而无需培养。这种新方法补充了病毒培养和宏基因组学方法，其优点包括对特定病毒群的靶向调查以及对病毒群体中基因组微多样性的调查。在这篇综述中，我们简要回顾了单病毒基因组学的历史，概述了这种新兴方法如何促进病毒生态学的发展，并讨论了其目前的局限性和未来的潜力。最后，我们探讨了这种方法如何与其他单细胞和单病毒方法协同交叉。
