Sun Yuechao, Zhang Yu, Zhang Xiaobo
College of Life Sciences and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, China.
Front Microbiol. 2022 May 13;13:877702. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2022.877702. eCollection 2022.
It is believed that the virions of a virus infecting a host may share the identical viral genome and characteristics. However, the role of genomic heterogeneity of the virions of a virus in virus infection has not been extensively explored. To address this issue, white spot syndrome virus (WSSV), a DNA virus infecting crustaceans, was characterized in the current study. In WSSV, differences in two nucleotides of the viral genome generated two types of WSSV, forming a virus population that consisted of Type A WSSV (encoding WSSV lncRNA-24) and Type B WSSV (encoding the wsv195 gene) at a ratio of 1:3. The virus populations in all virus-infected cells and tissues of different hosts exhibited a stable 1:3 structure. WSSV lncRNA-24 in Type A WSSV promoted virus infection by binding to shrimp and WSSV miRNAs, while the wsv195 gene in Type B WSSV played an essential role in virus infection. Loss of Type A WSSV or Type B WSSV in the WSSV population led to a 100-fold decrease in viral copy number in shrimp. Simultaneous loss of both types of WSSV prevented virus infection. These results indicated that the virus infection process was completed by two types of WSSV encoding different functional genes, revealing the complementary effects of WSSV population. Therefore, our study highlights the importance of the complementarity of virus population components in virus infection.
人们认为，感染宿主的病毒粒子可能共享相同的病毒基因组和特征。然而，病毒粒子的基因组异质性在病毒感染中的作用尚未得到广泛研究。为了解决这个问题，本研究对感染甲壳类动物的DNA病毒——白斑综合征病毒（WSSV）进行了表征。在WSSV中，病毒基因组中两个核苷酸的差异产生了两种类型的WSSV，形成了一个病毒群体，其中A型WSSV（编码WSSV lncRNA - 24）和B型WSSV（编码wsv195基因）的比例为1:3。在不同宿主的所有病毒感染细胞和组织中的病毒群体均呈现稳定的1:3结构。A型WSSV中的WSSV lncRNA - 24通过与对虾和WSSV miRNAs结合促进病毒感染，而B型WSSV中的wsv195基因在病毒感染中起关键作用。WSSV群体中A型WSSV或B型WSSV的缺失导致对虾中病毒拷贝数下降100倍。两种类型的WSSV同时缺失则会阻止病毒感染。这些结果表明，病毒感染过程是由两种编码不同功能基因的WSSV完成的，揭示了WSSV群体的互补作用。因此，我们的研究突出了病毒群体成分互补性在病毒感染中的重要性。
