Thomy Julie, Schvarcz Christopher R, McBeain Kelsey A, Edwards Kyle F, Steward Grieg F
Daniel K. Inouye Center for Microbial Oceanography: Research and Education, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI USA.
Department of Oceanography, School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology (SOEST), University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI USA.
Npj Viruses. 2024;2(1):51. doi: 10.1038/s44298-024-00060-2. Epub 2024 Oct 23.
Viruses in the phylum are large, complex and have an exceptionally diverse metabolic repertoire. Some encode hundreds of products involved in the translation of mRNA into protein, but none was known to encode any of the proteins in ribosomes, the central engines of translation. With the discovery of the eL40 gene in FloV-SA2, we report the first example of a eukaryotic virus encoding a ribosomal protein and show that this gene is also present and expressed in other uncultivated marine giant viruses. FloV-SA2 also encodes a "group II" viral rhodopsin, a viral light-activated protein of unknown function previously only reported in metagenomes. FloV-SA2 is thus a valuable model system for investigating new mechanisms by which viruses manipulate eukaryotic cell metabolism.
该门中的病毒体积庞大、结构复杂，具有极其多样的代谢功能。一些病毒编码数百种参与将信使核糖核酸（mRNA）翻译成蛋白质的产物，但此前尚无人知晓有任何病毒能编码核糖体中的任何蛋白质，而核糖体是翻译的核心引擎。随着在FloV-SA2中发现eL40基因，我们报告了首例编码核糖体蛋白的真核病毒，并表明该基因也存在于其他未培养的海洋巨型病毒中且能表达。FloV-SA2还编码一种“II类”病毒视紫红质，这是一种功能未知的病毒光激活蛋白，此前仅在宏基因组中报道过。因此，FloV-SA2是研究病毒操纵真核细胞代谢新机制的宝贵模型系统。
