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Review
. 2018 Feb 27;9(3):128.
doi: 10.3390/genes9030128.

Archaeal Viruses from High-Temperature Environments

Jacob H Munson-McGee  1 , Jamie C Snyder  2 , Mark J Young  3
Affiliations
Review

Archaeal Viruses from High-Temperature Environments

Jacob H Munson-McGee et al. Genes (Basel). .

Abstract

Archaeal viruses are some of the most enigmatic viruses known, due to the small number that have been characterized to date. The number of known archaeal viruses lags behind known bacteriophages by over an order of magnitude. Despite this, the high levels of genetic and morphological diversity that archaeal viruses display has attracted researchers for over 45 years. Extreme natural environments, such as acidic hot springs, are almost exclusively populated by Archaea and their viruses, making these attractive environments for the discovery and characterization of new viruses. The archaeal viruses from these environments have provided insights into archaeal biology, gene function, and viral evolution. This review focuses on advances from over four decades of archaeal virology, with a particular focus on archaeal viruses from high temperature environments, the existing challenges in understanding archaeal virus gene function, and approaches being taken to overcome these limitations.

Keywords: archaeal viral genes; archaeal viral genetics; archaeal virology; environmental virology; extremophiles.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Number of bacterial and archaeal viruses that have been fully sequenced and deposited in the NCBI viral genome database on 6 December 2017 [27].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Analysis of genes from double stranded DNA (dsDNA) viruses in the prokaryotic viral orthologous group (pVOG) analysis [54]. (A) Distribution of pVOGs that are encoded for by dsDNA bacteriophages only, dsDNA archaeal viruses only, or both. (B) Percentage of genes from each viral family for dsDNA archaeal viruses and bacteriophages that are not in a VOG, in a VOG with a predicted function, or in a VOG that lacks a predicted function. For each viral family, the number of viruses belonging to the family is provided in parenthesis. Archaeal viral families with high temperature representatives are shown in red.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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