Concepedia

Genomic analysis of uncultured marine viral communities

Mya Breitbart, Peter Salamon, Bjarne Andresen, Joseph M. Mahaffy, Anca M. Segall, David A. Mead, Farooq Azam, Forest Rohwer

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 2002 · 985 citations · 16 references

DOI

TL;DR

Viruses dominate oceanic ecosystems, yet their diversity remains largely unexplored. We performed genomic sequencing and analysis of two uncultured marine viral communities. The analysis revealed that over 65 % of viral sequences were novel, encompassing a vast diversity of 374–7,114 types, including dsDNA tailed phages and algal viruses, and suggested that complete community genomes could be sequenced.

Abstract

Viruses are the most common biological entities in the oceans by an order of magnitude. However, very little is known about their diversity. Here we report a genomic analysis of two uncultured marine viral communities. Over 65% of the sequences were not significantly similar to previously reported sequences, suggesting that much of the diversity is previously uncharacterized. The most common significant hits among the known sequences were to viruses. The viral hits included sequences from all of the major families of dsDNA tailed phages, as well as some algal viruses. Several independent mathematical models based on the observed number of contigs predicted that the most abundant viral genome comprised 2–3% of the total population in both communities, which was estimated to contain between 374 and 7,114 viral types. Overall, diversity of the viral communities was extremely high. The results also showed that it would be possible to sequence the entire genome of an uncultured marine viral community.