State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Marine Genetic Resource and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Third Institute of Oceanography, Ministry of Natural Resources, Xiamen, 361000, China.
Institute for Advanced Study, Shenzhen University, Shenzhen, Guangdong, China.
Nat Commun. 2024 Apr 15;15(1):3228. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-47600-1.
Seamounts are globally distributed across the oceans and form one of the major oceanic biomes. Here, we utilized combined analyses of bulk metagenome and virome to study viral communities in seamount sediments in the western Pacific Ocean. Phylogenetic analyses and the protein-sharing network demonstrate extensive diversity and previously unknown viral clades. Inference of virus-host linkages uncovers extensive interactions between viruses and dominant prokaryote lineages, and suggests that viruses play significant roles in carbon, sulfur, and nitrogen cycling by compensating or augmenting host metabolisms. Moreover, temperate viruses are predicted to be prevalent in seamount sediments, which tend to carry auxiliary metabolic genes for host survivability. Intriguingly, the geographical features of seamounts likely compromise the connectivity of viral communities and thus contribute to the high divergence of viral genetic spaces and populations across seamounts. Altogether, these findings provides knowledge essential for understanding the biogeography and ecological roles of viruses in globally widespread seamounts.
海山在全球的海洋中广泛分布，是海洋主要生物群系之一。在这里，我们利用宏基因组和病毒组的综合分析来研究西太平洋海山沉积物中的病毒群落。系统发育分析和蛋白质共享网络表明，病毒具有广泛的多样性和以前未知的病毒进化枝。病毒-宿主关联的推断揭示了病毒与主要原核生物谱系之间的广泛相互作用，并表明病毒通过补偿或增强宿主代谢来在碳、硫和氮循环中发挥重要作用。此外，预测温带病毒在海山沉积物中普遍存在，这些病毒往往携带宿主生存的辅助代谢基因。有趣的是，海山的地理特征可能会破坏病毒群落的连通性，从而导致病毒遗传空间和种群在海山之间的高度分化。总的来说，这些发现为理解病毒在全球广泛分布的海山中的生物地理学和生态作用提供了必要的知识。
