Abstract
BackgroundMembers of the family Iridoviridae can cause severe diseases resulting in significant economic and environmental losses. Very little is known about how iridoviruses cause disease in their host. In the present study, we describe the re-analysis of the Iridoviridae family of complex DNA viruses using a variety of comparative genomic tools to yield a greater consensus among the annotated sequences of its members.ResultsA series of genomic sequence comparisons were made among, and between the Ranavirus and Megalocytivirus genera in order to identify novel conserved ORFs. Of these two genera, the Megalocytivirus genomes required the greatest number of altered annotations. Prior to our re-analysis, the Megalocytivirus species orange-spotted grouper iridovirus and rock bream iridovirus shared 99% sequence identity, but only 82 out of 118 potential ORFs were annotated; in contrast, we predict that these species share an identical complement of genes. These annotation changes allowed the redefinition of the group of core genes shared by all iridoviruses. Seven new core genes were identified, bringing the total number to 26.ConclusionOur re-analysis of genomes within the Iridoviridae family provides a unifying framework to understand the biology of these viruses. Further re-defining the core set of iridovirus genes will continue to lead us to a better understanding of the phylogenetic relationships between individual iridoviruses as well as giving us a much deeper understanding of iridovirus replication. In addition, this analysis will provide a better framework for characterizing and annotating currently unclassified iridoviruses.
Highlights
Members of the family Iridoviridae can cause severe diseases resulting in significant economic and environmental losses
The family Iridoviridae is currently subdivided into five genera:Chloriridovirus, Iridovirus, Lymphocystivirus, Megalocytivirus, and Ranavirus [3]
Despite the economic and ecological significance of iridoviruses, very little is currently known about their molecular biology
Summary
Members of the family Iridoviridae can cause severe diseases resulting in significant economic and environmental losses. Iridoviruses are large DNA viruses (~120–200 nm in diameter) that replicate in the cytoplasm of infected cells. Iridoviruses have been found to infect invertebrates and poikilothermic vertebrates, including amphibians, reptiles, and fish [4]. Iridovirus infections produce symptoms that range from subclinical to very severe, which may result in significant mortality [5,6,7,8,9]. The high pathogenicity associated with some members of the iridovirus family has had a significant impact on modern aquaculture, fish farming, and wildlife conservation. Systemic iridovirus infections have been found in economically important freshwater and marine fish species worldwide
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