Metagenomic analysis indicates that stressors induce production of herpes-like viruses in the coral Porites compressa.
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.
Vega Thurber
Rebecca L
RL
Department of Biology, Computational Sciences Research Center, and Center for Microbial Sciences, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA 92182, USA. rvegathurber@gmail.com
Barott
Katie L
KL
Hall
Dana
D
Liu
Hong
H
Rodriguez-Mueller
Beltran
B
Desnues
Christelle
C
Edwards
Robert A
RA
Haynes
Matthew
M
Angly
Florent E
FE
Wegley
Linda
L
Rohwer
Forest L
FL
D000818:Animals; D037421:Anthozoa / Q000821:virology*; D023281:Genomics; D006564:Herpesviridae / Q000502:physiology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D014779:Virus Replication