Abstract
AbstractSeagrass meadows are important coastal ecosystems that are declining worldwide. Given the profound impact of the microbiome on plant health, exploration of the seagrass microbiome is critical for proper ecosystem management and conservation. Although prior studies have investigated seagrass‐associated bacteria, fungi, and protists, virtually nothing is known about viruses infecting these flowering marine plants. Here, we report genomic and microscopic evidence of a new positive‐sense, single‐stranded ribonucleic acid virus infecting apparently healthy Thalassia testudinum in Florida. The virus, named turtlegrass virus X (TVX), shares 66% genome‐wide pairwise identity with foxtail mosaic virus, a potexvirus that infects terrestrial grasses. Quantitative polymerase chain reaction revealed TVX presence in 10% to 80% of T. testudinum leaves from two Tampa Bay sampling locations in February and August 2017, with an average viral load of 4.65 × 108 copies per mg leaf tissue. The discovery of TVX advances seagrass microbiome research, prompting further studies to assess its ecological impact.
Highlights
Seagrass meadows are important coastal ecosystems that are declining worldwide
Most seagrass microbiome studies have focused on archaea, bacteria, and fungi; viruses have not been included in these efforts, and their impact on seagrass health remains unknown
Viral genome and phylogeny We discovered turtlegrass virus X (TVX), a novel positive-sense ssRNA virus, in apparently healthy T. testudinum seagrasses collected from based on genome-wide pairwise identities (A) and phylogenetic analysis of RdRP amino acid sequences (B)
Summary
Seagrass meadows are important coastal ecosystems that are declining worldwide. Given the profound impact of the microbiome on plant health, exploration of the seagrass microbiome is critical for proper ecosystem management and conservation. All PCR products and clones were commercially sequenced by TACGen. All sequences were assembled using the Geneious software package (Biomatters), resulting in the complete genome of a novel seagrass potexvirus, named turtlegrass virus X (TVX; GenBank accession number MH077559). A commercially synthesized plasmid (IDT Technologies) containing a 200 nt sequence of the TVX RdRp gene (genome positions 132–332) was serially diluted from 107 to 102 copies per 5 μL using nuclease-free water to determine the sensitivity of the qPCR assay before testing the seagrass samples.
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