Myers Jillian M, Schulz Frederik, Rahimlou Saleh, Yadav Vikas, Amses Kevin R, Simmons D Rabern, Sun Sheng, Orozco-Quime Michelle, Heitman Joseph, Stajich Jason E, James Timothy Y
Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI, USA.
DOE Joint Genome Institute, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, USA.
bioRxiv. 2025 May 8:2024.01.04.574182. doi: 10.1101/2024.01.04.574182.
Giant viruses of the phylum have emerged as particularly notable due to their increasingly recognized impacts on eukaryotic genome evolution. Their origins are hypothesized to predate or coincide with the diversification of eukaryotes, and they have been detected in hosts that span the eukaryotic tree of life. But surprisingly, such viruses have not been definitively found in Kingdom Fungi, though genomic and metagenomic work suggests a putative association. Here we report both "viral fossils" and active infection by giant viruses in fungi, particularly in the zoosporic phyla Blastocladiomycota and Chytridiomycota. The recovered viral genomes span up to 350 kb, encode over 300 genes, and form a monophyletic family-level clade within the related to orders and , which we name . We observed variation in infection status among the isolates including apparent active infection and transcriptionally-suppressed states, suggesting that viral activation may be constrained to certain life stages of the host. Our experimental findings add to the limited natural virus-host systems available in culture for the study of giant viruses. These viruses may have shaped the early evolution of these fungal lineages by the shuttling of genes between major kingdoms and domains of life. Our findings expand the known host range of into a new kingdom that contains many model species. have a global distribution, which invites inquiry into the implications of these infections for host traits, host genome evolution, and the metabolic impacts to ecosystems.
由于其对真核生物基因组进化的影响日益受到认可,该门的巨型病毒已成为特别引人注目的研究对象。据推测,它们的起源早于真核生物的多样化或与之同时发生,并且已在跨越真核生物生命之树的宿主中被检测到。但令人惊讶的是,尽管基因组学和宏基因组学研究表明可能存在关联,但在真菌界尚未明确发现此类病毒。在此,我们报告了真菌中巨型病毒的“病毒化石”和活跃感染情况,特别是在游动孢子菌门的芽枝霉门和壶菌门中。 recovered的病毒基因组跨度可达350 kb,编码超过300个基因,并在与 和 目相关的 内形成一个单系科级分支,我们将其命名为 。我们观察到分离株之间的感染状态存在差异,包括明显的活跃感染和转录抑制状态,这表明病毒激活可能受限于宿主的某些生命阶段。我们的实验结果增加了用于研究巨型病毒的有限的可培养天然病毒 - 宿主系统。这些病毒可能通过在主要生物界和生命域之间穿梭基因,塑造了这些真菌谱系的早期进化。我们的发现将已知的 的宿主范围扩展到一个包含许多模式物种的新生物界。 具有全球分布,这引发了对这些感染对宿主特征、宿主基因组进化以及对生态系统代谢影响的探究。