title: Metagenomic analysis indicates that stressors induce production of herpes-like viruses in the coral Porites compressa.
abstract: During the last several decades corals have been in decline and at least one-third of all coral species are now threatened with extinction. Coral disease has been a major contributor to this threat, but little is known about the responsible pathogens. To date most research has focused on bacterial and fungal diseases; however, viruses may also be important for coral health. Using a combination of empirical viral metagenomics and real-time PCR, we show that Porites compressa corals contain a suite of eukaryotic viruses, many related to the Herpesviridae. This coral-associated viral consortium was found to shift in response to abiotic stressors. In particular, when exposed to reduced pH, elevated nutrients, and thermal stress, the abundance of herpes-like viral sequences rapidly increased in 2 separate experiments. Herpes-like viral sequences were rarely detected in apparently healthy corals, but were abundant in a majority of stressed samples. In addition, surveys of the Nematostella and Hydra genomic projects demonstrate that even distantly related Cnidarians contain numerous herpes-like viral genes, likely as a result of latent or endogenous viral infection. These data support the hypotheses that corals experience viral infections, which are exacerbated by stress, and that herpes-like viruses are common in Cnidarians.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Computational Sciences Research Center, and Center for Microbial Sciences, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA. rvegathurber@gmail.com
authors.forename: Rebecca L
authors.initials: RL
authors.lastname: Vega Thurber
authors.forename: Katie L
authors.initials: KL
authors.lastname: Barott
authors.forename: Dana
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Hall
authors.forename: Hong
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Liu
authors.forename: Beltran
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Rodriguez-Mueller
authors.forename: Christelle
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Desnues
authors.forename: Robert A
authors.initials: RA
authors.lastname: Edwards
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Haynes
authors.forename: Florent E
authors.initials: FE
authors.lastname: Angly
authors.forename: Linda
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Wegley
authors.forename: Forest L
authors.initials: FL
authors.lastname: Rohwer
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D037421:Anthozoa / Q000821:virology*; D023281:Genomics; D006564:Herpesviridae / Q000502:physiology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014779:Virus Replication