Numerous cultivated and uncultivated viruses encode ribosomal proteins.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 30765709.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1038/s41467-019-08672-6 and PMC identifier 6375957.
- Licence recorded as CC BY.
- The licence permits redistribution, so the abstract is shown in full and the full text is available from the publisher.
Abstract
Viruses modulate ecosystems by directly altering host metabolisms through auxiliary metabolic genes. However, viral genomes are not known to encode the core components of translation machinery, such as ribosomal proteins (RPs). Here, using reference genomes and global-scale viral metagenomic datasets, we identify 14 different RPs across viral genomes arising from cultivated viral isolates and metagenome-assembled viruses. Viruses tend to encode dynamic RPs, easily exchangeable between ribosomes, suggesting these proteins can replace cellular versions in host ribosomes. Functional assays confirm that the two most common virus-encoded RPs, bS21 and bL12, are incorporated into 70S ribosomes when expressed in Escherichia coli. Ecological distribution of virus-encoded RPs suggests some level of ecosystem adaptations as aquatic viruses and viruses of animal-associated bacteria are enriched for different subsets of RPs. Finally, RP genes are under purifying selection and thus likely retained an important function after being horizontally transferred into virus genomes.