Deep Sequencing Reveals the Complete Genome and Evidence for Transcriptional Activity of the First Virus-Like Sequences Identified in Aristotelia chilensis (Maqui Berry)

Viruses

Javier Villacreses³  Marcelo Rojas-Herrera³  Carolina Sánchez³  Nicole Hewstone²  Soledad F. Undurraga³  Juan F. Alzate¹  Patricio Manque³  Vinicius Maracaja-Coutinho³  Victor Polanco³ 

[1] Centro Nacional de Secuenciación Genómica, Universidad de Antioquia, Medellín, Colombia; E-Mail:;Maqui New Life, Santiago, Chile; E-Mail:;Centro de Genómica y Bioinformática, Facultad de Ciencias, Universidad Mayor, Santiago 8580000, Chile; E-Mails:

关键词: Aristotelia chilensis;    Maqui berry;    genome;    transcriptome;    comparative genomics;    deep sequencing;    RNA sequencing;    Petuvirus;    Caulimoviridae;    plant virus;   

DOI  :  10.3390/v7041685

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Here, we report the genome sequence and evidence for transcriptional activity of a virus-like element in the native Chilean berry tree Aristotelia chilensis. We propose to name the endogenous sequence as Aristotelia chilensis Virus 1 (AcV1). High-throughput sequencing of the genome of this tree uncovered an endogenous viral element, with a size of 7122 bp, corresponding to the complete genome of AcV1. Its sequence contains three open reading frames (ORFs): ORFs 1 and 2 shares 66%–73% amino acid similarity with members of the Caulimoviridae virus family, especially the Petunia vein clearing virus (PVCV), Petuvirus genus. ORF1 encodes a movement protein (MP); ORF2 a Reverse Transcriptase (RT) and a Ribonuclease H (RNase H) domain; and ORF3 showed no amino acid sequence similarity with any other known virus proteins. Analogous to other known endogenous pararetrovirus sequences (EPRVs), AcV1 is integrated in the genome of Maqui Berry and showed low viral transcriptional activity, which was detected by deep sequencing technology (DNA and RNA-seq). Phylogenetic analysis of AcV1 and other pararetroviruses revealed a closer resemblance with Petuvirus. Overall, our data suggests that AcV1 could be a new member of Caulimoviridae family, genus Petuvirus, and the first evidence of this kind of virus in a fruit plant.

【 授权许可】

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