A 1.5-Mb continuous endogenous viral region in the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis.

ABSTRACT: Most fungal viruses are RNA viruses, and no double-stranded DNA virus that infects fungi is known to date. A recent study detected DNA polymerase genes that originated from large dsDNA viruses in the genomes of basal fungi, suggestive of the existence of dsDNA viruses capable of infecting fungi. In this study, we searched for viral infection signatures in chromosome-level genome assemblies of the arbuscular mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis. We identified a continuous 1.5-Mb putative viral region on a chromosome in R. irregularis strain 4401. Phylogenetic analyses revealed that the viral region is related to viruses in the family Asfarviridae of the phylum Nucleocytoviricota. This viral region was absent in the genomes of four other R. irregularis

SUBMITTER: Zhao H 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10640383 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature