Life-cycle and genome of OtV5, a large DNA virus of the pelagic marine unicellular green alga Ostreococcus tauri.

ABSTRACT: Large DNA viruses are ubiquitous, infecting diverse organisms ranging from algae to man, and have probably evolved from an ancient common ancestor. In aquatic environments, such algal viruses control blooms and shape the evolution of biodiversity in phytoplankton, but little is known about their biological functions. We show that Ostreococcus tauri, the smallest known marine photosynthetic eukaryote, whose genome is completely characterized, is a host for large DNA viruses, and present an analysis of the life-cycle and 186,234 bp long linear genome of OtV5. OtV5 is a lytic phycodnavirus which unexpectedly does not degrade its host chromosomes before the host cell bursts. Analysis of its complete genome sequence confirmed that it lacks expected site-specific endonucleases, and revealed the

SUBMITTER: Derelle E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2386258 | biostudies-literature | 2008 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature