High Diversity of the Viral Community from an Antarctic Lake
Shivering Viromes
Despite its icy reputation, freshwater ponds and lakes do occur in Antarctica, and open freshwater can be found for a few brief weeks during the austral summer. The ecology of these lakes is, as expected, rather specialized to cope with the extreme seasonal conditions. In a metagenomic study, López-Bueno et al. (p. 858) inspected the virus community of Lake Limnopolar on Livingston Island and found an unexpectedly rich genetic diversity. A dominant group of previously unidentified single-stranded DNA viruses was found, and a striking shift after ice-melt in spring from single-stranded to double-stranded DNA viruses was observed, probably as their algal hosts started to bloom with increasing daylight hours. The diverse viruses may donate specialized genes that host organisms can also exploit to aid their survival under winter extremes of heat and light deprivation.
Abstract
Viruses are the most abundant biological entities and can control microbial communities, but their identity in terrestrial and freshwater Antarctic ecosystems is unknown. The genetic structure of an Antarctic lake viral community revealed unexpected genetic richness distributed across the highest number of viral families that have been found to date in aquatic viral metagenomes. In contrast to other known aquatic viromes, which are dominated by bacteriophage sequences, this Antarctic virus assemblage had a large proportion of sequences related to eukaryotic viruses, including phycodnaviruses and single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses not previously identified in aquatic environments. We also observed that the transition from an ice-covered lake in spring to an open-water lake in summer led to a change from a ssDNA– to a double-stranded DNA–virus-dominated assemblage, possibly reflecting a seasonal shift in host organisms.
Get full access to this article
View all available purchase options and get full access to this article.
Supplementary Material
File (lopez-bueno.som.pdf)
- Download
- 1.60 MB
References and Notes
1
Peck L. S., et al., Polar Biol. 28, 351 (2005).
2
Convey P., Stevens M. I., Science 317, 1877 (2007).
3
Convey P., et al., Biol. Rev. Cambridge Philos. Soc. 83, 103 (2008).
4
Laybourn-Parry J., Pearce D. A., Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. B Biol. Sci. 362, 2273 (2007).
5
Pearce D. A., Wilson W. H., Antarct. Sci. 15, 319 (2003).
6
Cowan D. A., Tow L. A., Annu. Rev. Microbiol. 58, 649 (2004).
7
Laybourn-Parry J., Science 324, 1521 (2009).
8
Suttle C. A., Nat. Rev. Microbiol. 5, 801 (2007).
9
Fuhrman J. A., Nature 399, 541 (1999).
10
Mann N. H., Cook A., Millard A., Bailey S., Clokie M., Nature 424, 741 (2003).
11
Williamson S. J., et al., PLoS One 3, e1456 (2008).
12
Angly F. E., et al., PLoS Biol. 4, e368 (2006).
13
Dinsdale E. A., et al., Nature 452, 629 (2008).
14
Toro M., et al., Polar Biol. 30, 635 (2007).
15
Sawstrom C., Lisle J., Anesio A. M., Priscu J. C., Laybourn-Parry J., Extremophiles 12, 167 (2008).
16
Kepner R. L., Wharton R. A., Suttle C. A., Limnol. Oceanogr. 43, 1754 (1998).
17
Wilson W. H., Lane D., Pearce D. A., Ellis-Evans J. C., Polar Biol. 23, 657 (2000).
18
Materials and methods are available as supporting material on Science Online.
19
Chown S. L., Convey P., Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London Ser. B Biol. Sci. 362, 2307 (2007).
20
Fuhrman J. A., et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 105, 7774 (2008).
21
Desnues C., et al., Nature 452, 340 (2008).
22
Filee J., Tetart F., Suttle C. A., Krisch H. M., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 102, 12471 (2005).
23
Kim K. H., et al., Appl. Environ. Microbiol. 74, 5975 (2008).
24
Derelle E., et al., PLoS One 3, e2250 (2008).
25
Sullivan M. B., Coleman M. L., Weigele P., Rohwer F., Chisholm S. W., PLoS Biol. 3, e144 (2005).
26
Breitbart M., et al., Environ. Microbiol. 11, 16 (2009).
27
Rohwer F., Thurber R. V., Nature 459, 207 (2009).
28
Laybourn-Parry J., Sommaruga J. S. H. R., Freshwater Biol. 46, 1279 (2001).
(0)eLetters
eLetters is a forum for ongoing peer review. eLetters are not edited, proofread, or indexed, but they are screened. eLetters should provide substantive and scholarly commentary on the article. Embedded figures cannot be submitted, and we discourage the use of figures within eLetters in general. If a figure is essential, please include a link to the figure within the text of the eLetter. Please read our Terms of Service before submitting an eLetter.
Log In to Submit a ResponseNo eLetters have been published for this article yet.
Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Science
Volume 326 | Issue 5954
6 November 2009
6 November 2009
Copyright
Copyright © 2009, American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Submission history
Received: 17 July 2009
Accepted: 3 September 2009
Published in print: 6 November 2009
Acknowledgments
We thank the Maritime Technology Unit (CSIC) and Las Palmas crew (Spanish Navy) for the logistic help and support that made this expedition possible. We also thank M. Toro, A. Camacho, and other members of the Limnopolar Project for help and discussions; A. Alejo for helpful comments and reviewing the manuscript; and M. Pignatelli for technical support. This work was funded by grants from the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation (CGL2005-06549-C02-01/ANT, CGL2007-29843-E/ANT, CTM2008-05134-E/ANT, and BFU2008-04501-E). Spring and summer viral metagenomes from the Antarctic Lake Limnopolar have been submitted to GenBank and assigned the genome project accession number 34669. The metagenomes are also publicly accessible from the ftp server of the SEED public database (ftp://ftp.theseed.org/metagenomes) under the project accession numbers 4441778.3 and 4441558.3 for the spring and summer viromes, respectively. PCR-obtained sequences encoding the gp23 protein of Antarctic T4-phages and the MCP protein of Antarctic phycodnavirus have been also deposited at GenBank as “environmental sequences” and are listed under accession numbers FJ791185-247 and FJ791175-84, respectively.
Authors
Metrics & Citations
Metrics
Article Usage
Altmetrics
Citations
Cite as
- Alberto López-Bueno et al.
Export citation
Select the format you want to export the citation of this publication.
Cited by
- Biodiversity and distribution of polar freshwater DNA viruses, Science Advances, 1, 5, (2015)./doi/10.1126/sciadv.1400127
Loading...
View Options
Check Access
Log in to view the full text
AAAS login provides access to Science for AAAS Members, and access to other journals in the Science family to users who have purchased individual subscriptions.
- Become a AAAS Member
- Activate your AAAS ID
- Purchase Access to Other Journals in the Science Family
- Account Help
Log in via OpenAthens.
Log in via Shibboleth.
More options
Register for free to read this article
As a service to the community, this article is available for free. Login or register for free to read this article.
Buy a single issue of Science for just $15 USD.