Active prokaryotic and eukaryotic viral ecology across spatial scale in a deep-sea brine pool.

ABSTRACT: Deep-sea brine pools represent rare, extreme environments, providing unique insight into the limits of life on Earth, and by analogy, the plausibility of life beyond it. A distinguishing feature of many brine pools is presence of thick microbial mats that develop at the brine-seawater interface. While these bacterial and archaeal communities have received moderate attention, viruses and their host interactions in these environments remain underexplored. To bridge this knowledge gap, we leveraged metagenomic and metatranscriptomic data from three distinct zones within the NEOM brine pool system (Gulf of Aqaba) to reveal the active viral ecology around the pools. We report a remarkable diversity and activity of viruses infecting microbial hosts in this environment, including giant viruses, R

SUBMITTER: Minch B 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11252502 | biostudies-literature | 2024 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature