Hesketh-Best Poppy J, Bosco-Santos Alice, Garcia Sofia L, O'Beirne Molly D, Werne Josef P, Gilhooly William P, Silveira Cynthia B
Department of Biology, University of Miami, Coral Gables, FL USA.
Institute of Earth Surface Dynamics, University of Lausanne, Lausanne, Switzerland.
Commun Earth Environ. 2023;4(1):126. doi: 10.1038/s43247-023-00796-4. Epub 2023 Apr 19.
Viral infections modulate bacterial metabolism and ecology. Here, we investigated the hypothesis that viruses influence the ecology of purple and green sulfur bacteria in anoxic and sulfidic lakes, analogs of euxinic oceans in the geologic past. By screening metagenomes from lake sediments and water column, in addition to publicly-available genomes of cultured purple and green sulfur bacteria, we identified almost 300 high and medium-quality viral genomes. Viruses carrying the gene , encoding the small subunit of photosystem II protein D1, were ubiquitous, suggesting viral interference with the light reactions of sulfur oxidizing autotrophs. Viruses predicted to infect these autotrophs also encoded auxiliary metabolic genes for reductive sulfur assimilation as cysteine, pigment production, and carbon fixation. These observations show that viruses have the genomic potential to modulate the production of metabolic markers of phototrophic sulfur bacteria that are used to identify photic zone euxinia in the geologic past.
病毒感染会调节细菌的代谢和生态。在此，我们研究了一种假说，即病毒会影响缺氧和含硫湖泊中紫色和绿色硫细菌的生态，这些湖泊类似于地质历史时期的缺氧海洋。通过筛选湖泊沉积物和水柱的宏基因组，以及已公开的培养紫色和绿色硫细菌的基因组，我们鉴定出了近300个高质量和中等质量的病毒基因组。携带编码光系统II蛋白D1小亚基基因的病毒无处不在，这表明病毒会干扰硫氧化自养生物的光反应。预计会感染这些自养生物的病毒还编码了用于将硫还原同化为半胱氨酸、色素生成和碳固定的辅助代谢基因。这些观察结果表明，病毒具有调节光养硫细菌代谢标志物产生的基因组潜力，这些标志物曾被用于识别地质历史时期的光合带缺氧环境。
