Exploring the Archaeal Virosphere by Metagenomics

Abstract

During the past decade, environmental research has demonstrated that archaea are abundant and widespread in nature and play important ecological roles at a global scale. Currently, however, the majority of archaeal lineages cannot be cultivated under laboratory conditions and are known exclusively or nearly exclusively through metagenomics. A similar trend extends to the archaeal virosphere, where isolated representatives are available for a handful of model archaeal virus-host systems. Viral metagenomics provides an alternative way to circumvent the limitations of culture-based virus discovery and offers insight into the diversity, distribution, and environmental impact of uncultured archaeal viruses. Presently, metagenomics approaches have been successfully applied to explore the viromes associated with various lineages of extremophilic and mesophilic archaea, including Asgard archaea (Asgardarchaeota), ANME-1 archaea (Methanophagales), thaumarchaea (Nitrososphaeria), altiarchaea (Altiarchaeota), and marine group II archaea (Poseidoniales). Here, we provide an overview of methods widely used in archaeal virus metagenomics, covering metavirome preparation, genome annotation, phylogenetic and phylogenomic analyses, and archaeal host assignment. We hope that this summary will contribute to further exploration and characterization of the enigmatic archaeal virome lurking in diverse environments.

Keywords: Archaea; Archaeal viruses; CRISPR spacers; Host prediction; Major capsid protein; Metagenomics; Virome.