The Earth Is Small for “Leviathans”: Long Distance Dispersal of Giant Viruses across Aquatic Environments

Yanze Li; Hisashi Endo; Yasuhiro Gotoh; Hiroyasu Watai; Nana Ogawa; Romain Blanc-Mathieu; Takashi Yoshida; Hiroyuki Ogata

doi:10.1264/jsme2.ME19037

Short Communications

The Earth Is Small for “Leviathans”: Long Distance Dispersal of Giant Viruses across Aquatic Environments

Yanze Li, Hisashi Endo, Yasuhiro Gotoh, Hiroyasu Watai, Nana Ogawa, Romain Blanc-Mathieu, Takashi Yoshida, Hiroyuki Ogata

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Keywords: ‘Megaviridae’, Mimiviridae, DNA polymerase, MEGAPRIMER, richness

JOURNAL OPEN ACCESS FULL-TEXT HTML

2019 Volume 34 Issue 3 Pages 334-339

DOI https://doi.org/10.1264/jsme2.ME19037

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Abstract

Giant viruses of ‘Megaviridae’ have the ability to widely disperse around the globe. We herein examined ‘Megaviridae’ communities in four distinct aquatic environments (coastal and offshore seawater, brackish water, and hot spring freshwater), which are distantly located from each other (between 74 and 1,765 km), using a meta-barcoding method. We identified between 593 and 3,627 OTUs in each sample. Some OTUs were detected in all five samples tested as well as in many of the Tara Oceans metagenomes, suggesting the existence of viruses of this family in a wide range of habitats and the ability to circulate on the planet.

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