Abstract
Halovirus is a major force that affects the evolution of extreme halophiles and the biogeochemistry of hypersaline environments. However, until now, the systematic studies on the halovirus ecology and the effects of salt concentration on virus-host systems are lacking. To provide more valuable information for understanding ecological strategies of a virus-host system in the hypersaline ecosystem, we studied the interaction between halovirus SNJ1 and its host Natrinema sp.J7-2 under various NaCl concentrations. We found that the adsorption rate and lytic rate increased with salt concentration, demonstrating that a higher salt concentration promoted viral adsorption and proliferation. Contrary to the lytic rate, the lysogenic rate decreased as the salt concentration increased. Our results also demonstrated that cells incubated at a high salt concentration prior to infection increased the ability of the virus to adsorb and lyse its host cells; therefore, the physiological status of host cells also affected the virus-host interaction. In conclusion, SNJ1 acted as a predator, lysing host cells and releasing progeny viruses in hypersaline environments; in low salt environments, viruses lysogenized host cells to escape the damage from low salinity.
Highlights
Viruses are the most abundant biological entities in aquatic systems; the estimated number of virus-like particles in the biosphere is more than 1031, and viruses outnumber cellular organisms by at least one order of magnitude [1, 2]
Comparing the results of halovirus infective activities with host growth rates in various salinities, we found that the host cells were more tolerant to an altered NaCl concentration than SNJ1
We found that SNJ1 was less tolerant to altered NaCl concentration than its host cells (Fig 1), opposite to the behavior of previously reported haloviruses, for example, HCTV-1, HHTV-1, HHPV-1, HRTV-1, SCTP-1, SCTP-2 and SH1 [34], Hh-1an Hh-3 [35], and Ja.1 [33]
Summary
Viruses are the most abundant biological entities in aquatic systems; the estimated number of virus-like particles in the biosphere is more than 1031, and viruses outnumber cellular organisms by at least one order of magnitude [1, 2]. Archaeal viruses were first discovered in 1974 [3], the number of studied archaeal viruses is approximately 100 [4,5,6], accounting for only approximately 1–2% of the known prokaryotic and eukaryotic viruses. The focus on archaeal viruses is limited, and there are many questions in our understanding of archaeal viruses and their ecological functions [5, 7,8,9].
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