Hewson, I.; Aquino, C.A.; DeRito, C.M. Virome Variation during Sea Star Wasting Disease Progression in Pisaster ochraceus (Asteroidea, Echinodermata). Viruses2020, 12, 1332.
Hewson, I.; Aquino, C.A.; DeRito, C.M. Virome Variation during Sea Star Wasting Disease Progression in Pisaster ochraceus (Asteroidea, Echinodermata). Viruses 2020, 12, 1332.
Hewson, I.; Aquino, C.A.; DeRito, C.M. Virome Variation during Sea Star Wasting Disease Progression in Pisaster ochraceus (Asteroidea, Echinodermata). Viruses2020, 12, 1332.
Hewson, I.; Aquino, C.A.; DeRito, C.M. Virome Variation during Sea Star Wasting Disease Progression in Pisaster ochraceus (Asteroidea, Echinodermata). Viruses 2020, 12, 1332.
Abstract
Sea star wasting disease (SSWD) is a condition that has affected asteroids for over 120 years, yet mechanistic understanding of wasting etiology remains elusive. We investigated temporal virome variation in two Pisaster ochraceus specimens that wasted in the absence of external stimuli and two specimens that did not experience SSWD for the duration of our study, and compared viromes of wasting lesion margin tissues to both artificial scar margins and grossly normal tissues over time. Global assembly of all SSWD-affected tissue libraries resulted in 45 viral genome fragments represented in >1 library. Genome fragments mostly matched densoviruses and picornaviruses with fewer matching nodaviruses, narnaviruses and sobemoviruses. Picornavirus-like and densovirus-like genome fragments were most similar to viral genomes recovered in metagenomic study of other marine invertebrates. Read recruitment revealed only 2 picornavirus-like genome fragments that recruited from only SSWD-affected specimens, but neither was unique to wasting lesions. Wasting lesion margin reads recruited to a greater number of viral genotypes (i.e. richness) than did either scar tissue and grossly normal tissue reads. Taken together, these data suggest that no single viral genome fragment was associated with SSWD. Rather, wasting lesion margins may generally support viral proliferation.
Keywords
Densovirus; Picornavirus; Nodavirus; Sea Star Wasting Disease; Asteroidea
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Anatomy and Physiology
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.