Project description:Aquatic microbial communities contain a vast amount of genetic diversity and we have much to learn about how this manifests to functional diversity. Existing long-term time series data includes 16S tags, metagenomes, single amplified genomes (SAGs), and genomes from metagenomes (GFMs). Information about functional diversity and metabolic capabilities is often unavailable. The study sites include three lakes that are the subject of intense study through the North Temperate Lakes Long Term Ecological Research site: Sparkling Lake (oligotrophic), Lake Mendota (eutrophic), and Trout Bog Lake (dystrophic).
The work (proposal:https://doi.org/10.46936/10.25585/60000947) conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy Joint Genome Institute (https://ror.org/04xm1d337), a DOE Office of Science User Facility, is supported by the Office of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy operated under Contract No. DE-AC02-05CH11231.
Project description:The protist Aurantiochytrium limacinum possesses two mirusvirus-like genomic elements, one a circular episome (AurliV-1) and the other (AurliV-2) a chromosomal integrant. Here we show that genes in both genomes are expressed and virions containing mainly AurliV-1 DNA are produced under starvation conditions and when cells are cultured in standard growth medium. Of 67 AurliV-1-encoded proteins detected using proteomics, 48 are enriched under starvation conditions, including the structurally important major capsid and triplex proteins. Our results establish Aurantiochytrium as a model system for elucidating mirusvirus-host interactions and demonstrate persistent viral infection in a microbial eukaryote.