Prasinoviruses of the marine green alga Ostreococcus tauri are mainly species specific - PubMed (original) (raw)

Prasinoviruses of the marine green alga Ostreococcus tauri are mainly species specific

Camille Clerissi et al. J Virol. 2012 Apr.

Abstract

Prasinoviruses infecting unicellular green algae in the order Mamiellales (class Mamiellophyceae) are commonly found in coastal marine waters where their host species frequently abound. We tested 40 Ostreococcus tauri viruses on 13 independently isolated wild-type O. tauri strains, 4 wild-type O. lucimarinus strains, 1 Ostreococcus sp. ("Ostreococcus mediterraneus") clade D strain, and 1 representative species of each of two other related species of Mamiellales, Bathycoccus prasinos and Micromonas pusilla. Thirty-four out of 40 viruses infected only O. tauri, 5 could infect one other species of the Ostreococcus genus, and 1 infected two other Ostreococcus spp., but none of them infected the other genera. We observed that the overall susceptibility pattern of Ostreococcus strains to viruses was related to the size of two host chromosomes known to show intraspecific size variations, that genetically related viruses tended to infect the same host strains, and that viruses carrying inteins were strictly strain specific. Comparison of two complete O. tauri virus proteomes revealed at least three predicted proteins to be candidate viral specificity determinants.

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Figures

Fig 1

Fig 1

Locations of sampling sites. Four locations are lagoons (Leucate, 42°48′24″N, 03°01′27″E; La Palme, 42°57′18.04″, 3°0′3.56″E; Bages-Sigean, 43°03′14.76″N, 2°59′51.63″E; and Thau, 43°26′01.40″N, 03°39′54.49″E), and the two others are open-sea stations, one coastal (SOLA, 42°29′18″N, 3°8′42″E) and one offshore (MOLA, 42°27′11″N, 3°32′36″E). SOLA is a marine station included in the French marine monitoring network SOMLIT.

Fig 2

Fig 2

Specificity test: lysis spots in a suspension of host cells immobilized in soft agarose. No lysis for C2 and D2; low lysis for A3 and B3; intermediate lysis for A2 and B2; high lysis for A1, B1, C1, D1, C3, and D3.

Fig 3

Fig 3

Specificity patterns. Lines refer to hosts, and columns refer to viruses. −, no lysis; ■, lysis on the host used for the isolation of the virus; ●, high lysis; formula image, intermediate lysis; ○, low lysis.

Fig 4

Fig 4

Percent identities between OtV5 and OtV1 orthologous proteins. The most divergent proteins could be involved in the adaptive behavior of O. tauri viruses, particularly in their specificity.

Fig 5

Fig 5

OtV5_074 protein structure. The dot plot shows repetitive motifs for the first 600 amino acids of the OtV5_074 protein sequence. Such motifs have also been found for OtV5_073.

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