NOVAC – Novel viruses of terrestrial subsurface archaea impacting global carbon cycling

NOVAC â 影响全球碳循环的陆地地下古细菌的新型病毒

• 批准号: 429483359
• 负责人: Professor Dr. Alexander Probst
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Arbeitsgruppe Environmental Metagenomics
• 依托单位国家: 德国
• 项目类别: Research Grants
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 德国
• 起止时间: 2018-12-31 至 2022-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gepris.dfg.de/gepris/projekt/429483359?language=en
• 关键词: NOVAC; Novel; viruses; terrestrial; subsurface

The (deep) continental subsurface is home to a great abundance and diversity of archaea and bacteria, yet little is known about the viruses that infect these organisms. Of particular interest are dominant primary producers as they jump-start the food chain in these oligotrophic ecosystems and could in theory be an important target for viruses. In this proposal we hypothesize that Altiarchaeota, an uncultivated group of autotrophic subsurface archaea that occur in hot spots across the globe, are frequent targets of novel viruses that consequently impact carbon cycling. In preliminary results, we were able to bioinformatically identify putative viruses infecting Altiarchaeota and showed the actual infection of one of these viruses in the ecosystem using direct-geneFISH. Building on this prerequisite knowledge, we will first identify mobile genetic elements that infect Altiarchaeota, in public datasets collected from subsurface locations across the globe. These elements will include viruses, one of which will be investigated in detail regarding its microdiversity in our main study site in Germany. In our second goal, we will visualize and calculate the infection rates of the selected virus in the ecosystem using a combination of direct-geneFISH, superresolution microscopy and Raman microscopy. In the third goal, we plan to identify the structure of the predicted virus using three independent microscopy approaches. These approaches include direct-geneFISH-mediated atomic force microsopy and transmission electron microscopy as well as immunogold labeling of viral proteins with antibodies generated from predicted and heterologously expressed proteins. These approaches will ultimately result in a comprehensive dataset of one uncultivated virus-host relationship in order to unravel the different infection stages of a virus in the actual ecosystem. The results of this proposal will shed new light on the diversity and function of deep subsurface viruses that infect autotropic archaea and thus alter carbon cycling in these environments.

（深层）大陆地下是大量和多样性的古细菌和细菌的家园，但对感染这些生物的病毒知之甚少。特别令人感兴趣的是占主导地位的初级生产者，因为他们在这些贫营养生态系统中启动了食物链，理论上可能是病毒的重要目标。在这个提议中，我们假设，Altiarchaeota，一个未培养的群体的自养地下古菌发生在整个地球仪的热点，是新的病毒，从而影响碳循环的频繁目标。在初步结果中，我们能够生物信息学识别感染Altiarchaeota的假定病毒，并使用直接基因FISH显示这些病毒之一在生态系统中的实际感染。基于这一前提知识，我们将首先在从地球仪的地下位置收集的公共数据集中识别感染Altiarchaeota的移动的遗传元素。这些元素将包括病毒，其中一种将在我们德国的主要研究中心详细研究其微多样性。在我们的第二个目标中，我们将使用直接基因FISH，超分辨率显微镜和拉曼显微镜的组合来可视化和计算生态系统中选定病毒的感染率。在第三个目标中，我们计划使用三种独立的显微镜方法来确定预测病毒的结构。这些方法包括直接基因FISH介导的原子力显微镜和透射电子显微镜，以及免疫金标记的病毒蛋白与抗体产生的预测和异源表达的蛋白质。这些方法最终将产生一个未培养的病毒-宿主关系的综合数据集，以揭示病毒在实际生态系统中的不同感染阶段。这一提议的结果将为深层地下病毒的多样性和功能提供新的线索，这些病毒感染了嗜热古菌，从而改变了这些环境中的碳循环。