Related Experiment Video
Updated: Aug 2, 2025

Unraveling the Unseen Players in the Ocean - A Field Guide to Water Chemistry and Marine Microbiology
Published on: November 5, 2014
Environmental viromes reveal the global distribution signatures of deep-sea DNA viruses
Tianliang He1, Min Jin2, Pei Cui3
1College of Life Sciences, Laboratory for Marine Biology and Biotechnology of Pilot National Laboratory for Marine Science and Technology (Qingdao) and Southern Marine Science and Engineering Guangdong Laboratory (Zhuhai), Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310058, China; Key Laboratory of Marine Biotechnology of Fujian Province, Institute of Oceanology, Fujian Agriculture and Forestry University, Fuzhou 350002, China.
Introduction:
Viruses are abundant and ecologically significant in marine ecosystems. However, the virome of deep-sea sediments is not extensively investigated.
Objectives:
To explore the distribution pattern of deep-sea viruses on a global scale, the viromes of DNA viruses isolated from 138 sediments of 5 deep-sea ecosystems were characterized.
Methods:
The viral particles were purified from each sediment sample. Then the viral DNAs were extracted and subjected to viral metagenomic analysis.
Results:
Here, we constructed a global deep-sea environmental virome dataset by analyzing the viral DNA of 138 sediment samples. A total of 347,737 viral operational taxonomic units (vOTUs) were identified, of which 84.94% were hitherto unknown, indicating that deep sea was a reservoir of novel DNA viruses. Furthermore, circular viral genome analysis revealed 98,581 complete genomes. The classified vOTUs included eukaryotic (44.55%) and prokaryotic (25.75%) viruses, and were taxonomically assigned to 63 viral families. The composition and abundance of the deep-sea sediment viromes were dependent on the deep-sea ecosystem as opposed to geographical region. Further analysis revealed that the viral community differentiation in different deep-sea ecosystems was driven by the virus-mediated energy metabolism.
Conclusion:
Our findings showed that deep-sea ecosystems are a reservoir of novel DNA viruses and the viral community is shaped by the environmental characteristics of deep-sea ecosystems, thus presenting critical information for determining the ecological significance of viruses in global deep-sea ecosystems.
More Related Videos
Related Concept Videos
Viruses of Archaea
Applications of Molecular Taxonomy
Viruses with RNA Genomes
Modern Molecular Taxonomy
Diversity of Archaea II
Diversity of Archaea IV

