Speaker: Dr Timofey Skvortsov, Lecturer in Microbial Bioinformatics, School of Pharmacy at Queen’s University Belfast, will present a seminar entitled: Temporal dynamics of uncultured viruses in a freshwater lake

Host: Andrew Page

Abstract:
Viruses are the most abundant biological entities on earth and have a significant impact on the structure and composition of microbial communities and nutrient cycling. The ecology of viruses in freshwater ecosystems is poorly understood, but high diversity of viruses and the lack of a universal marker gene such as bacterial 16S rRNA significantly complicate their study. The combination of shotgun metagenomics and 16S rRNA sequencing allowed us to conduct a detailed exploration of the structure, seasonal dynamics and functional potential of the viral community in a temperate freshwater eutrophic lake (Lough Neagh, Northern Ireland).

We reconstructed 8,950 complete and partial viral genomes, the majority of which were not persistent in the lake throughout the year, but instead continuously succeeded each other. Temporal analysis of 732 genus-level viral clusters showed that one-fifth were undetectable at specific periods of the year. Based on host predictions for a subset of reconstructed viral genomes, we for the first time reveal three distinct patterns of host–pathogen dynamics, where the viruses may peak before, during or after the peak in their host’s abundance, providing new possibilities for modelling of their interactions. Finally, the analysis of auxiliary metabolic genes of Lough Neagh bacteriophages demonstrated a clear difference in the functional potential of the viral community between winter-early spring and summer-autumn periods, likely reflecting viral adaptation to the hosts.

Overall, our study provides a much needed insight into the interaction of viruses and their hosts in nature and improves our understanding of viral diversity by demonstrating the transient nature of most viral groups of genomes in an ecosystem.

Further information: https://pure.qub.ac.uk/portal/en/persons/timofey-skvortsov(deaeaaae-e6f9-47d6-a762-8511cb685dbd).html

All staff from organisations on the Norwich Research Park are welcome to attend.