Re-assessing the diversity of negative strand RNA viruses in insects

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1008224
• Publication Date: 2019-12-12T13:47:02Z
• Authors: Simon Käfer; Sofia Paraskevopo...; Florian Zirkel; Nicolas Wieseke; Alexander Donath; Malte Petersen; Terry C. Jones; Shanlin Liu; Xin Zhou; Martin Middendorf; Sandra Junglen; Bernhard Misof; Christian Drosten
• Keywords: RNA virus; Human virome

The spectrum of viruses in insects is important for subjects as diverse public health, veterinary medicine, food production, and biodiversity conservation. traditional interest vector-borne diseases humans livestock has drawn the attention virus studies to hematophagous insect species. However, these represent only a tiny fraction broad diversity Hexapoda, most speciose group animals. Here, we systematically probed negative strand RNA largest representative collection transcriptomes from samples representing all 34 extant orders Hexapoda 3 Entognatha, well outgroups, altogether 1243 Based on profile hidden Markov models detected 488 viral RNA-directed polymerase (RdRp) sequences with similarity viruses. These were identified members 324 arthropod Selection length, quality, uniqueness left 234 analyses, showing genomes classified Bunyavirales (n = 86), Articulavirales 54), several within Haploviricotina 94). Coding-complete or nearly-complete subgenomic assemblies obtained 61 cases. phylogenetic topology availability coding-complete estimate that at least 20 novel genera seven families need be defined, two them monospecific. Seven additional clades emerge when adding present study formerly monospecific lineages, potentially requiring up genera. One long sequence may indicate family. For segmented viruses, cophylogenies between genome segments generally improved by inclusion study, suggesting silico misassembly rare absent. Contrary previous assessments, significant virus-host codivergence was major lineages based different approaches analysis hypotheses testing framework. In spite additions known insects, caution basing taxonomic decisions information alone challenging due technical uncertainties, such inability prove integrity complete