Journal of the Marine Biological Association of India

Screening of Arctic virome - A pilot study to delineate the viral diversity

Volume 62 Issue 2

Bhavya Kachiprath, P. Nusaira,Reshma Raju, Jayesh Puthumana,G. Jayanath, Anjali S. Mohan, Solly Solomon, Swapna P. Antonyand Rosamma Philip

doi:10.6024/jmbai.2020.62.2.2191-12

Abstract

Viruses are the most abundant and genetically diverse acellular biological entities in the oceans. Extreme environments like Polar Regions represent an important source of both DNA and RNA viruses. This study is focused on the diversity of viruses in water samples collected from stations 4.1 and 5 in Kongsfjorden, Arctic. DNA viruses inhabiting both stations from Kongsfjorden were represented mainly by bacteria infecting Cyanophage and Roseophage, insect infecting Iridovirus, fish infecting Lymphocystis virus and human infecting Adenovirus. Emiliania huxleyi virus (EhV) infecting algae and the Torque virus infecting humans were detected from station 4.1 only, whereas ssDNA virus and Torno virus with genome size ranging from about 200 to 600 bp were detected only from station 5. The study exhibited limited RNA viral communities from both stations among which 3 different RNA viruses like Aichivirus, Vesivirus and Macronovirus were detected from station 5 of Kongsfjorden.

Keywords

Arctic virus, metagenomics, viral flocculation, Emiliania huxleyi virus, roseophage, cyanophage, Kongsfjorden

Date : 10-01-2021