CAREER: Bioinformatic Resources for Promoting Research and Education of Giant Viruses

该奖项全部或部分由2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。巨型病毒是地球仪生态系统的多样性和重要组成部分。这些病毒的物理尺寸和基因组长度超过了某些细菌，它们的基因组通常编码糖酵解、三羧酸循环和蛋白质合成装置的组分，这就提出了关于病毒复杂性极限的重要问题。巨型病毒还可以整合（内源化）到其宿主的基因组中，形成巨型内源性病毒元件（GEVE），在真核基因组进化中发挥重要作用。尽管巨型病毒及其在许多重要生物过程中的作用非常复杂，但可用于研究这些病毒的生物信息学基础设施远远落后于细胞谱系，需要新的计算资源进行分析。本项目将开发用于巨型病毒基因组分析的新型生物信息学工具和资源，并建立以巨型病毒发现为重点的本科教学课程。研究生和本科生以及博士后将接受培训，以分析病毒基因组和开发新的生物信息学资源。巨型病毒是地球仪生态系统的重要成员。最近的进展，培养无关的方法已经恢复了大量的草案宏基因组衍生的病毒基因组，但目前很难评估这些基因组的质量或分类。这些限制大大阻碍了了解这些环境相关病毒的多样性和环境影响的进展。该项目的研究将开发新的生物信息学工具，以评估宏基因组衍生的巨型病毒的质量，并将其整合到分类和系统发育框架中。此外，鉴于内源性巨型病毒在许多宿主谱系的基因组进化中的重要作用，还将开发用于量化巨型病毒在真核基因组进化中的作用的工具。在这个项目中开发的资源将被整合到一个本科教学课程，重点是巨型病毒的发现。这项工作的结果将公布在巨型病毒数据库https://faylward.github.io/GVDB/.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估来支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Giant viruses are diverse and important constituents of ecosystems around the globe. These viruses have physical dimensions and genome lengths that exceed those of some bacteria and their genomes often encode components of glycolysis, the tricarboxylic acid cycle, and the protein synthesis apparatus, raising important questions regarding the limits of viral complexity. Giant viruses can also incorporate (endogenize) into the genomes of their host, forming Giant Endogenous Viral Elements (GEVEs) that play an important role in eukaryotic genome evolution. Despite the intriguing complexity of giant viruses and their roles in many important biological processes, the bioinformatic infrastructure available for studying these viruses lags far behind that of cellular lineages, and new computational resources for their analysis are needed. This project will develop novel bioinformatic tools and resources for the genomic analysis of giant viruses, and establish an undergraduate teaching curriculum focused on giant virus discovery. Both graduate and undergraduate students as well as postdocs will be trained to analyze viral genomes and develop novel bioinformatic resources. Giant viruses are important members of ecosystems around the globe. Recent advances in cultivation-independent approaches have recovered a large number of draft metagenome-derived viral genomes, but at present it is difficult to assess the quality of these genomes or classify them. These limitations substantially hinder progress in understanding the diversity and environmental impact of these environmentally-relevant viruses. Research in this project will develop novel bioinformatic tools to assess the quality of metagenome-derived giant viruses and integrate them into a taxonomic and phylogenetic framework. Moreover, given the important role of endogenous giant viruses in the genome evolution of many host lineages, tools for quantifying the role of giant viruses in eukaryotic genome evolution will also be developed. The resources developed in this project will be integrated into an undergraduate teaching curriculum focused on giant virus discovery. Results of this work will be posted on the Giant Virus Database https://faylward.github.io/GVDB/.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.