Petrone Mary E, Charon Justine, Grigg Matthew J, William Timothy, Rajahram Giri S, Westaway Jacob, Piera Kim A, Shi Mang, Anstey Nicholas M, Holmes Edward C
Sydney Infectious Diseases Institute, School of Medical Sciences, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia.
Laboratory of Data Discovery for Health Limited, 19 Science Park West Avenue, Hong Kong Science Park, Pak Shek Kok, New Territories, Hong Kong SAR, China.
Virus Evol. 2024 Nov 6;10(1):veae091. doi: 10.1093/ve/veae091. eCollection 2024.
The Apicomplexa are a phylum of single-celled eukaryotes that can infect humans and include the mosquito-borne parasite , the cause of malaria. Viruses that infect non- spp. disease-causing protozoa affect the pathogen life cycle and disease outcomes. However, only one RNA virus (Matryoshka RNA virus 1) has been identified in , and none have been identified in zoonotic species. The rapid expansion of the known RNA virosphere via metagenomic sequencing suggests that this dearth is due to the divergent nature of RNA viruses that infect protozoa. We leveraged newly uncovered data sets to explore the virome of human-infecting species collected in Sabah, east (Borneo) Malaysia. From this, we identified a highly divergent RNA virus in two human-infecting isolates that is related to the unclassified group 'ormycoviruses'. By characterizing 15 additional ormycoviruses identified in the transcriptomes of arthropods, we show that this group of viruses exhibits a complex ecology as noninfecting passengers at the arthropod-mammal interface. With the addition of viral diversity discovered using the artificial intelligence-based analysis of metagenomic data, we also demonstrate that the ormycoviruses are part of a diverse and unclassified viral taxon. This is the first observation of an RNA virus in a zoonotic species. By linking small-scale experimental data to advances in large-scale virus discovery, we characterize the diversity and confirm the putative genomic architecture of an unclassified viral taxon. This approach can be used to further explore the virome of disease-causing Apicomplexa and better understand how protozoa-infecting viruses may affect parasite fitness, pathobiology, and treatment outcomes.
顶复门是一类单细胞真核生物，可感染人类，其中包括通过蚊子传播的寄生虫，即疟疾的病原体。感染非疟原虫属致病原生动物的病毒会影响病原体的生命周期和疾病结局。然而，在疟原虫中仅鉴定出一种RNA病毒（套娃RNA病毒1），而在人畜共患的疟原虫物种中尚未鉴定出任何病毒。通过宏基因组测序，已知RNA病毒圈迅速扩大，这表明这种缺乏是由于感染原生动物的RNA病毒具有不同的性质。我们利用新发现的数据集，探索在马来西亚东部（婆罗洲）沙巴收集的感染人类的疟原虫物种的病毒组。据此，我们在两种感染人类的疟原虫分离株中鉴定出一种高度分化的RNA病毒，它与未分类的“卵菌病毒”组有关。通过对在节肢动物转录组中鉴定出的另外15种卵菌病毒进行特征分析，我们表明这组病毒在节肢动物 - 哺乳动物界面作为非感染性过客表现出复杂的生态。随着利用基于人工智能的宏基因组数据分析发现的病毒多样性的增加，我们还证明卵菌病毒是一个多样且未分类的病毒分类群的一部分。这是在人畜共患疟原虫物种中首次观察到RNA病毒。通过将小规模实验数据与大规模病毒发现的进展联系起来，我们对一种未分类病毒分类群的多样性进行了特征分析，并确认了其假定的基因组结构。这种方法可用于进一步探索致病顶复门的病毒组，并更好地了解感染原生动物的病毒如何影响寄生虫适应性、病理生物学和治疗结果。
