Revisiting evolutionary trajectories and the organization of the Pleolipoviridae family

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pgen.1010998
• Publication Date: 2023-10-13T17:38:45Z
• Authors: Tomas Alarcón-Sch...; Dominik Lücking; Susanne Erdmann
• Keywords: Human evolutionary genetics

Archaeal pleomorphic viruses belonging to the Pleolipoviridae family represent an enigmatic group as they exhibit unique genomic features and are thought have evolved through recombination with different archaeal plasmids. However, most of our understanding diversity evolutionary trajectories this clade comes from a handful isolated representatives. Here we present 164 new genomes pleolipoviruses obtained metagenomic data Australian hypersaline lakes publicly available data. We perform comprehensive analysis on relationships newly discovered previously described pleolipoviruses. propose classify into five genera within family, one genus represented only by virus retrieved in study. Our support current hypothesis that reshaped their recombining multiple groups plasmids, which is reflected predicted replication strategies. show proposed Epsilonpleolipovirus has ties pRN1-like plasmids Sulfolobus, suggesting could be infecting other phyla. Interestingly, observed genome size correlated presence or absence integrase. Analyses host range revealed all but extremely narrow range, tertiary structure spike protein strongly associated specific adaptation S-layer glycoprotein organization.