Gene Transfer Among Viruses Substantially Contributes to Gene Gain of Giant Viruses.
Mol Biol Evol
; 41(8)2024 Aug 02.
Article
en En
| MEDLINE
| ID: mdl-39093595
ABSTRACT
The phylum Nucleocytoviricota comprises a diverse group of double-stranded DNA viruses that display a wide range of gene repertoires. Although these gene repertoires determine the characteristics of individual viruses, the evolutionary processes that have shaped the gene repertoires of extant viruses since their common ancestor are poorly characterized. In this study, we aimed to address this gap in knowledge by using amalgamated likelihood estimation, a probabilistic tree reconciliation method that infers evolutionary scenarios by distinguishing origination, gene duplications, virus-to-virus horizontal gene transfer (vHGT), and gene losses. We analyzed over 4,700 gene families from 195 genomes spanning all known viral orders. The evolutionary reconstruction suggests a history of extensive gene gains and losses during the evolution of these viruses, notably with vHGT contributing to gene gains at a comparable level to duplications and originations. The vHGT frequently occurred between phylogenetically closely related viruses, as well as between distantly related viruses with an overlapping host range. We observed a pattern of massive gene duplications that followed vHGTs for gene families that was potentially related to host range control and virus-host arms race. These results suggest that vHGT represents a previously overlooked, yet important, evolutionary force that integrates the evolutionary paths of multiple viruses and affects shaping of Nucleocytoviricota virus gene repertoires.
Palabras clave
Texto completo:
1
Colección:
01-internacional
Base de datos:
MEDLINE
Asunto principal:
Transferencia de Gen Horizontal
/
Virus Gigantes
Idioma:
En
Revista:
Mol Biol Evol
Asunto de la revista:
BIOLOGIA MOLECULAR
Año:
2024
Tipo del documento:
Article
País de afiliación:
Japón
Pais de publicación:
Estados Unidos