Abstract
Here, we report the genome sequence and evidence for transcriptional activity of a virus-like element in the native Chilean berry tree Aristotelia chilensis. We propose to name the endogenous sequence as Aristotelia chilensis Virus 1 (AcV1). High-throughput sequencing of the genome of this tree uncovered an endogenous viral element, with a size of 7122 bp, corresponding to the complete genome of AcV1. Its sequence contains three open reading frames (ORFs): ORFs 1 and 2 shares 66%–73% amino acid similarity with members of the Caulimoviridae virus family, especially the Petunia vein clearing virus (PVCV), Petuvirus genus. ORF1 encodes a movement protein (MP); ORF2 a Reverse Transcriptase (RT) and a Ribonuclease H (RNase H) domain; and ORF3 showed no amino acid sequence similarity with any other known virus proteins. Analogous to other known endogenous pararetrovirus sequences (EPRVs), AcV1 is integrated in the genome of Maqui Berry and showed low viral transcriptional activity, which was detected by deep sequencing technology (DNA and RNA-seq). Phylogenetic analysis of AcV1 and other pararetroviruses revealed a closer resemblance with Petuvirus. Overall, our data suggests that AcV1 could be a new member of Caulimoviridae family, genus Petuvirus, and the first evidence of this kind of virus in a fruit plant.
Highlights
Similar to all eukaryotic organisms, plant genomes commonly have inserted mobile genetic elements and viruses [1]
This initial similarity analysis showed top 10 BLASTn hits with complete pararetrovirus and endogenous pararetrovirus (EPRV) sequences (e-values ≤ 2e-05), suggesting the presence of a complete virus inserted in Maqui genome, named here as Aristotelia chilensis Virus 1 (AcV1), containing a full size estimated in 7122 bp
We describe here the first virus inserted in the genome of the Chilean plant Maqui berry, AcV1, using deep sequencing and bioinformatics approaches
Summary
Similar to all eukaryotic organisms, plant genomes commonly have inserted mobile genetic elements and viruses [1]. New high throughput sequencing technologies (DNA and RNA-seq) and bioinformatics methods have accelerated the sequencing and analysis of new genomes and transcriptomes of complex organisms, allowing the identification of new virus species integrated within complete or draft genome sequences [2,3]. Maqui (Aristotelia chilensis [Molina] Stuntz) is an endemic Chilean tree. It has a high economic value due to the characteristics of its fruits, which possess a high antioxidant capacity [4]. This fruit’s ability to scavenge reactive oxygen species (ROS) is conferred by its extremely elevated anthocyanin content, which surpasses the levels of other popular berries, i.e., strawberries, blueberries and grapes [4,5]. It has been reported that Maqui Berry has anti-inflammatory properties [6], cardioprotective activity [7], inhibits
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