Deep mining reveals the diversity of endogenous viral elements in vertebrate genomes

Integration of viruses into host genomes can give rise to endogenous viral elements (EVEs), which provide insights into viral diversity, host range and evolution. A systematic search for EVEs is becoming computationally challenging given the available genomic data. We used a cloud-computing approach to perform a comprehensive search for EVEs in the kingdoms Shotokuvirae and Orthornavirae across vertebrates. We identified 2,040 EVEs in 295 vertebrate genomes and provide evidence for EVEs belonging to the families Chuviridae, Paramyxoviridae, Nairoviridae and Benyviridae. We also find an EVE from the Hepacivirus genus of flaviviruses with orthology across murine rodents. In addition, our analyses revealed that reptarenaviruses and filoviruses probably acquired their glycoprotein ectodomains three times independently from retroviral elements. Taken together, these findings encourage the addition of 4 virus families and the Hepacivirus genus to the growing virus fossil record of vertebrates, providing key insights into their natural history and evolution.