TY - JOUR
T1 - A field guide to eukaryotic circular single-stranded DNA viruses
T2 - Insights gained from metagenomics
AU - Rosario, Karyna
AU - Duffy, Siobain
AU - Breitbart, Mya
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors were supported by grants from the National Science Foundation Biodiversity Inventories program (DEB-1025915 to MB and DEB-1026095 to SD). Thanks to Yahayra Rosario-Cora for providing illustrations.
PY - 2012/10
Y1 - 2012/10
N2 - Despite their small size and limited protein-coding capacity, the rapid evolution rates of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses have led to their emergence as serious plant and animal pathogens. Recently, metagenomics has revealed an unprecedented diversity of ssDNA viruses, expanding their known environmental distributions and host ranges. This review summarizes and contrasts the basic characteristics of known circular ssDNA viral groups, providing a resource for analyzing the wealth of ssDNA viral sequences identified through metagenomics. Since ssDNA viruses are largely identified based on conserved rolling circle replication proteins, this review highlights distinguishing motifs and catalytic residues important for replication. Genomes identified through metagenomics have demonstrated unique ssDNA viral genome architectures and revealed characteristics that blur the boundaries between previously well-defined groups. Metagenomic discovery of ssDNA viruses has created both a challenge to current taxonomic classification schemes and an opportunity to revisit hypotheses regarding the evolutionary history of these viruses.
AB - Despite their small size and limited protein-coding capacity, the rapid evolution rates of single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses have led to their emergence as serious plant and animal pathogens. Recently, metagenomics has revealed an unprecedented diversity of ssDNA viruses, expanding their known environmental distributions and host ranges. This review summarizes and contrasts the basic characteristics of known circular ssDNA viral groups, providing a resource for analyzing the wealth of ssDNA viral sequences identified through metagenomics. Since ssDNA viruses are largely identified based on conserved rolling circle replication proteins, this review highlights distinguishing motifs and catalytic residues important for replication. Genomes identified through metagenomics have demonstrated unique ssDNA viral genome architectures and revealed characteristics that blur the boundaries between previously well-defined groups. Metagenomic discovery of ssDNA viruses has created both a challenge to current taxonomic classification schemes and an opportunity to revisit hypotheses regarding the evolutionary history of these viruses.
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U2 - 10.1007/s00705-012-1391-y
DO - 10.1007/s00705-012-1391-y
M3 - Review article
C2 - 22760663
AN - SCOPUS:84867142649
SN - 0304-8608
VL - 157
SP - 1851
EP - 1871
JO - Archives of Virology
JF - Archives of Virology
IS - 10
ER -