skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Giant Virus Infection Signatures Are Modulated by Euphotic Zone Depth Strata and Iron Regimes of the Subantarctic Southern Ocean

Journal Article · · mSystems
 [1];  [1];  [1];  [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [2];  [1]
  1. University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN (United States)
  2. University of Tasmania, Hobart, TAS (Australia)
  3. Australian National University, Canberra, ACT (Australia)
  4. Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, East Boothbay, MA (United States)
  5. Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)

Viruses can alter the abundance, evolution, and metabolism of microorganisms in the ocean, playing a key role in water column biogeochemistry and global carbon cycles. Large efforts to measure the contribution of eukaryotic microorganisms (e.g., protists) to the marine food web have been made, yet the in situ activities of the ecologically relevant viruses that infect these organisms are not well characterized. Viruses within the phylum Nucleocytoviricota (“giant viruses”) are known to infect a diverse range of ecologically relevant marine protists, yet how these viruses are influenced by environmental conditions remains under-characterized. By employing metatranscriptomic analyses of in situ microbial communities along a temporal and depthresolved gradient, we describe the diversity of giant viruses at the Southern Ocean Time Series (SOTS), a site within the subpolar Southern Ocean. Using a phylogeny-guided taxonomic assessment of detected giant virus genomes and metagenome-assembled genomes, we observed depth-dependent structuring of divergent giant virus families mirroring dynamic physicochemical gradients in the stratified euphotic zone. Analyses of transcribed metabolic genes from giant viruses suggest viral metabolic reprogramming of hosts from the surface to a 200-m depth. Lastly, using on-deck incubations reflecting a gradient of iron availability, we show that modulating iron regimes influences the activity of giant viruses in the field. Specifically, we show enhanced infection signatures of giant viruses under both iron-replete and iron-limited conditions. Collectively, these results expand our understanding of how the water column’s vertical biogeography and chemical surroundings affect an important group of viruses within the Southern Ocean

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); Australian Research Council; National Science Foundation (NSF)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231; DP170102108; DP220100289; OCE-1829641
OSTI ID:
1970165
Journal Information:
mSystems, Vol. 8, Issue 2; ISSN 2379-5077
Publisher:
American Society for MicrobiologyCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (73)

Host-derived viral transporter protein for nitrogen uptake in infected marine phytoplankton journal August 2017
Diel quenching of Southern Ocean phytoplankton fluorescence is related to iron limitation journal January 2020
Phytoplankton Virus Production Negatively Affected by Iron Limitation journal August 2016
A phylogenomic framework for charting the diversity and evolution of giant viruses journal October 2021
Identification of a High-Affinity Phosphate Transporter Gene in a Prasinophyte Alga, Tetraselmis chui, and Its Expression under Nutrient Limitation journal February 2003
UFBoot2: Improving the Ultrafast Bootstrap Approximation journal October 2017
FastViromeExplorer: a pipeline for virus and phage identification and abundance profiling in metagenomics data journal January 2018
Seasonal succession of phytoplankton community structure from autonomous sampling at the Australian Southern Ocean Time Series (SOTS) observatory journal February 2018
Regional Variation in Lytic and Lysogenic Viral Infection in the Southern Ocean and Its Contribution to Biogeochemical Cycling journal July 2012
Dynamic genome evolution and complex virocell metabolism of globally-distributed giant viruses journal April 2020
Impaired viral infection and reduced mortality of diatoms in iron-limited oceanic regions journal April 2021
Metabolic arsenal of giant viruses: Host hijack or self-use? journal July 2022
Long Serial Analysis of Gene Expression for Gene Discovery and Transcriptome Profiling in the Widespread Marine Coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi journal January 2006
MEGAHIT: an ultra-fast single-node solution for large and complex metagenomics assembly via succinct de Bruijn graph journal January 2015
Marine viruses — major players in the global ecosystem journal October 2007
The response of the virus community to the SEEDS II mesoscale iron fertilization journal December 2009
Virioplankton dynamics and virally induced phytoplankton lysis versus microzooplankton grazing southeast of the Kerguelen (Southern Ocean) journal March 2008
Virioplankton: Viruses in Aquatic Ecosystems journal March 2000
CD-HIT: accelerated for clustering the next-generation sequencing data journal October 2012
featureCounts: an efficient general purpose program for assigning sequence reads to genomic features journal November 2013
Prodigal: prokaryotic gene recognition and translation initiation site identification journal March 2010
A distinct lineage of giant viruses brings a rhodopsin photosystem to unicellular marine predators journal September 2019
Nutrients and Their Acquisition: Phosphorus Physiology in Microalgae book January 2016
The Marine Microbial Eukaryote Transcriptome Sequencing Project (MMETSP): Illuminating the Functional Diversity of Eukaryotic Life in the Oceans through Transcriptome Sequencing journal June 2014
Mesoscale Iron Enrichment Experiments 1993-2005: Synthesis and Future Directions journal February 2007
Fast and sensitive protein alignment using DIAMOND journal November 2014
Trace metal contents of autotrophic flagellates from contrasting open‐ocean ecosystems journal May 2022
Phytoplankton community response to a manipulation of bioavailable iron in HNLC waters of the subtropical Pacific Ocean journal January 2004
Bioavailable iron titrations reveal oceanic Synechococcus ecotypes optimized for different iron availabilities journal July 2022
IQ-TREE: A Fast and Effective Stochastic Algorithm for Estimating Maximum-Likelihood Phylogenies journal November 2014
Manipulation of cellular syntheses and the nature of viruses: The virocell concept journal April 2011
Mash: fast genome and metagenome distance estimation using MinHash journal June 2016
The “Neglected Viruses” of Taihu: Abundant Transcripts for Viruses Infecting Eukaryotes and Their Potential Role in Phytoplankton Succession journal March 2020
Giant virus biology and diversity in the era of genome-resolved metagenomics journal July 2022
Giant viruses come of age journal June 2016
A mesoscale phytoplankton bloom in the polar Southern Ocean stimulated by iron fertilization journal October 2000
Virus-host relationships of marine single-celled eukaryotes resolved from metatranscriptomics journal June 2017
Taxon Richness of “Megaviridae” Exceeds those of Bacteria and Archaea in the Ocean journal January 2018
Origin and Evolution of Eukaryotic Large Nucleo-Cytoplasmic DNA Viruses journal January 2010
Global distribution of a wild alga revealed by targeted metagenomics journal September 2012
Glutamine Synthetase in Marine Algae: new Surprises from an old Enzyme journal October 2001
Distinct Oceanic Microbiomes From Viruses to Protists Located Near the Antarctic Circumpolar Current journal July 2018
The rapidly expanding universe of giant viruses: Mimivirus, Pandoravirus, Pithovirus and Mollivirus journal September 2015
EUKulele: Taxonomic annotation of the unsung eukaryotic microbes journal January 2021
High Transcriptional Activity and Diverse Functional Repertoires of Hundreds of Giant Viruses in a Coastal Marine System journal August 2021
The 474-Kilobase-Pair Complete Genome Sequence of CeV-01B, a Virus Infecting Haptolina ( Chrysochromulina ) ericina (Prymnesiophyceae) journal December 2015
Enhanced viral production and virus-mediated mortality of bacterioplankton in a natural iron-fertilized bloom event above the Kerguelen Plateau journal December 2014
Coccolithovirus facilitation of carbon export in the North Atlantic journal March 2018
Enhanced viral production and infection of bacterioplankton during an iron-induced phytoplankton bloom in the Southern Ocean journal May 2009
Virocell Metabolism: Metabolic Innovations During Host–Virus Interactions in the Ocean journal October 2016
Ecogenomics and Adaptation Strategies of Southern Ocean Viral Communities journal August 2021
Genome of brown tide virus (AaV), the little giant of the Megaviridae, elucidates NCLDV genome expansion and host–virus coevolution journal October 2014
Spinning the “Ferrous Wheel”: The importance of the microbial community in an iron budget during the FeCycle experiment: MICROBIAL IRON RECYCLING journal December 2005
Viral infection and iron metabolism journal July 2008
Viral lysis modifies seasonal phytoplankton dynamics and carbon flow in the Southern Ocean journal June 2021
Factors affecting virus dynamics and microbial host - virus interactions in marine environments journal May 2014
Methods for reproducible shipboard SFA nutrient measurement using RMNS and automated data processing journal December 2018
Marine Viruses: Truth or Dare journal January 2012
A giant virus infecting green algae encodes key fermentation genes journal May 2018
Hyaluronan Synthase of Chlorella Virus PBCV-1 journal December 1997
Genome of Phaeocystis globosa virus PgV-16T highlights the common ancestry of the largest known DNA viruses infecting eukaryotes journal June 2013
Role of iron, light, and silicate in controlling algal biomass in subantarctic waters SE of New Zealand journal June 1999
Viral release of iron and its bioavailability to marine plankton journal September 2004
Erratum: Seasonal time bombs: dominant temperate viruses affect Southern Ocean microbial dynamics journal January 2017
Marine viruses and their biogeochemical and ecological effects journal June 1999
Ab initio gene identification in metagenomic sequences journal April 2010
Giant virus diversity and host interactions through global metagenomics journal January 2020
A Potassium Channel Protein Encoded by Chlorella Virus PBCV-1 journal March 2000
Elemental quotas and physiology of a southwestern Pacific Ocean plankton community as a function of iron availability journal March 2013
Distribution of phytoplankton groups within the deep chlorophyll maximum journal November 2016
Measurement of mRNA abundance using RNA-seq data: RPKM measure is inconsistent among samples journal August 2012
Moderated estimation of fold change and dispersion for RNA-seq data with DESeq2 journal December 2014
ViralRecall—A Flexible Command-Line Tool for the Detection of Giant Virus Signatures in ‘Omic Data journal January 2021

Similar Records

A distinct lineage of giant viruses brings a rhodopsin photosystem to unicellular marine predators
Journal Article · Mon Sep 23 00:00:00 EDT 2019 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · OSTI ID:1970165

Defensive symbiosis against giant viruses in amoebae
Journal Article · Mon Aug 29 00:00:00 EDT 2022 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · OSTI ID:1970165

Potential virus-mediated nitrogen cycling in oxygen-depleted oceanic waters
Journal Article · Mon Nov 16 00:00:00 EST 2020 · The ISME Journal · OSTI ID:1970165