Mahar Jackie E, Wille Michelle, Harvey Erin, Moritz Craig C, Holmes Edward C
Sydney Institute for Infectious Diseases, School of Medical Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
Centre for Pathogen Genomics, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, The Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne, Victoria 3000, Australia.
Virus Evol. 2024 May 28;10(1):veae044. doi: 10.1093/ve/veae044. eCollection 2024.
Lizards have diverse ecologies and evolutionary histories, and represent a promising group to explore how hosts shape virome structure and virus evolution. Yet, little is known about the viromes of these animals. In Australia, squamates (lizards and snakes) comprise the most diverse order of vertebrates, and Australia hosts the highest diversity of lizards globally, with the greatest breadth of habitat use. We used meta-transcriptomic sequencing to determine the virome of nine co-distributed, tropical lizard species from three taxonomic families in Australia and analyzed these data to identify host traits associated with viral abundance and diversity. We show that lizards carry a large diversity of viruses, identifying more than thirty novel, highly divergent vertebrate-associated viruses. These viruses were from nine viral families, including several that contain well known pathogens, such as the , , and . Members of the were particularly abundant across species sampled here, largely belonging to the genus : fourteen novel hepaciviruses were identified, broadening the known diversity of this group and better defining its evolution by uncovering new reptilian clades. The evolutionary histories of the viruses studied here frequently aligned with the biogeographic and phylogenetic histories of the hosts, indicating that exogenous viruses may help infer host evolutionary history if sampling is strategic and sampling density high enough. Notably, analysis of alpha and beta diversity revealed that virome composition and richness in the animals sampled here was shaped by host taxonomy and habitat. In sum, we identified a diverse range of reptile viruses that broadly contributes to our understanding of virus-host ecology and evolution.
蜥蜴具有多样的生态和进化历史，是探索宿主如何塑造病毒组结构和病毒进化的一个很有前景的群体。然而，人们对这些动物的病毒组知之甚少。在澳大利亚，有鳞目动物（蜥蜴和蛇）是脊椎动物中种类最多的目，澳大利亚拥有全球蜥蜴种类最丰富的群体，其栖息地利用范围也最广。我们使用元转录组测序来确定来自澳大利亚三个分类科的九种同域分布的热带蜥蜴物种的病毒组，并分析这些数据以确定与病毒丰度和多样性相关的宿主特征。我们发现蜥蜴携带种类繁多的病毒，鉴定出三十多种新型的、高度分化的脊椎动物相关病毒。这些病毒来自九个病毒科，包括几个含有知名病原体的科，如 、 和 。 科的成员在此处采样的物种中特别丰富，主要属于 属：鉴定出十四种新型丙型肝炎病毒，拓宽了该群体已知的多样性，并通过发现新的爬行动物进化枝更好地界定了其进化。此处研究的病毒的进化历史常常与宿主的生物地理和系统发育历史一致，这表明如果采样策略得当且采样密度足够高，外源病毒可能有助于推断宿主的进化历史。值得注意的是，对α和β多样性的分析表明，此处采样动物的病毒组组成和丰富度受宿主分类学和栖息地的影响。总之，我们鉴定出了各种各样的爬行动物病毒，这在很大程度上有助于我们理解病毒 - 宿主的生态学和进化。
