Assessment of viral community functional potential from viral metagenomes may be hampered by contamination with cellular sequences.

ABSTRACT: Although the importance of viruses in natural ecosystems is widely acknowledged, the functional potential of viral communities is yet to be determined. Viral genomes are traditionally believed to carry only those genes that are directly pertinent to the viral life cycle, though this view was challenged by the discovery of metabolism genes in several phage genomes. Metagenomic approaches extended these analyses to a community scale, and several studies concluded that microbial and viral communities encompass similar functional potentials. However, these conclusions could originate from the presence of cellular DNA within viral metagenomes. We developed a computational method to estimate the proportion and origin of cellular sequences in a set of 67 published viromes. A quarter of the datase

SUBMITTER: Roux S 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3877843 | biostudies-literature | 2013 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature