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Profile and functional analysis of small RNAs derived from Aspergillus fumigatus infected with double-stranded RNA mycoviruses.

ABSTRACT: Mycoviruses are viruses that naturally infect and replicate in fungi. Aspergillus fumigatus, an opportunistic pathogen causing fungal lung diseases in humans and animals, was recently shown to harbour several different types of mycoviruses. A well-characterised defence against virus infection is RNA silencing. The A. fumigatus genome encodes essential components of the RNA silencing machinery, including Dicer, Argonaute and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) homologues. Active silencing of double-stranded (ds)RNA and the generation of small RNAs (sRNAs) has been shown for several mycoviruses and it is anticipated that a similar mechanism will be activated in A. fumigatus isolates infected with mycoviruses.To investigate the existence and nature of A. fumigatus sRNAs, sRNA-seq libraries of virus-free and virus-infected isolates were created using Scriptminer adapters and compared. Three dsRNA viruses were investigated: Aspergillus fumigatus partitivirus-1 (AfuPV-1, PV), Aspergillus fumigatus chrysovirus (AfuCV, CV) and Aspergillus fumigatus tetramycovirus-1 (AfuTmV-1, NK) which were selected because they induce phenotypic changes such as coloration and sectoring. The dsRNAs of all three viruses, which included two conventionally encapsidated ones PV and CV and one unencapsidated example NK, were silenced and yielded characteristic vsiRNAs together with co-incidental silencing of host fungal genes which shared sequence homology with the viral genomes.Virus-derived sRNAs were detected and characterised in the presence of virus infection. Differentially expressed A. fumigatus microRNA-like (miRNA-like) sRNAs and small interfering RNAs (siRNAs) were detected and validated. Host sRNA loci which were differentially expressed as a result of virus infection were also identified. To our knowledge, this is the first study reporting the sRNA profiles of A. fumigatus isolates.

SUBMITTER: Ozkan S

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5450132 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Profile and functional analysis of small RNAs derived from Aspergillus fumigatus infected with double-stranded RNA mycoviruses.

Özkan Selin S Mohorianu Irina I Xu Ping P Dalmay Tamas T Coutts Robert H A RHA

BMC genomics 20170530 1

<h4>Background</h4>Mycoviruses are viruses that naturally infect and replicate in fungi. Aspergillus fumigatus, an opportunistic pathogen causing fungal lung diseases in humans and animals, was recently shown to harbour several different types of mycoviruses. A well-characterised defence against virus infection is RNA silencing. The A. fumigatus genome encodes essential components of the RNA silencing machinery, including Dicer, Argonaute and RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRP) homologues. Activ ...[more]

PMID: 28558690

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Project description:In the last few years, increasing numbers of viruses infecting fungi have been identified. In this study, we used an in silico approach for the analysis of deep RNA sequencing data in order to discover and characterize putative genomic ssRNA or dsRNA mycovirus sequences in Aspergillus fumigatus. RNA sequencing reads of A. fumigatus strains were mapped against the A. fumigatus Af293 reference genome. Unmapped reads were collected for de novo assembly. Contigs were analyzed by Blastx comparison with a mycovirus protein database. Assembled viral genomes were used as template for remapping of RNA sequencing reads. In total, deep RNA sequencing results from 11 A. fumigatus strains were analyzed for the presence of mycoviral genomic RNAs. In 9 out of 11 strains, putative mycoviral RNA genomes were identified. Three strains were infected with two different mycovirus species. Two strains were infected with Aspergillus fumigatus polymycovirus type-1 (AfuPmV-1). Four strains contained fully recovered genomic RNA of unknown narna-like viruses designated as Aspergillus fumigatus narnavirus-1 and Aspergillus fumigatus narnavirus-2 (AfuNV-1 and AfuNV-2). Both viruses showed 38% amino acid sequence identity to Beihai narna-like virus-21. Three strains contained partially recovered genomic RNA of an unknown narna-like virus. Two strains contained fully recovered genomic RNAs of an unknown partitivirus designated as Aspergillus fumigatus partitivirus-2 (AfuPV-2) which showed 50% amino acid sequence identity to Alternaria alternata partitivirus-1. Finally, one strain contained fully recovered genomic RNA of an unknown mitovirus designated as Aspergillus fumigatus mitovirus-1 (AfuMV-1) which showed 34% amino acid sequence identity to Sclerotina sclerotiorum mitovirus. In silico analysis of deep RNA sequencing results showed that a majority of the A. fumigatus strains used here were infected with mycoviruses. Four novel A. fumigatus RNA mycoviruses could be identified: two different Aspergillus fumigatus narna-like viruses, one Aspergillus fumigatus partitivirus, and one Aspergillus fumigatus mitovirus.

Project description:BackgroundBotrytis cinerea CCg378 is a wild-type strain infected with two types of double-stranded RNA (dsRNA) mycoviruses and which presents hypovirulence-associated traits. The objectives of the present study were to characterize the mycoviruses and investigate their relationship with the low virulence degree of the fungal host.ResultsB. cinerea CCg378 contains five dsRNA molecules that are associated with two different types of isometric viral particles of 32 and 23 nm in diameter, formed by structural polypeptides of 70-kDa and 48-kDa, respectively. The transfection of spheroplasts of a virus-free strain, B. cinerea CKg54, with viral particles purified from the CCg378 strain revealed that the 2.2-kbp dsRNAs have no dependency on the smaller molecules for its stable maintenance in the fungal cytoplasm, because a fungal clone that only contains the 2.2-kbp dsRNAs associated with the 32-nm particles was obtained, which we named B. cinerea CKg54vi378. One of the 2.2 kbpdsRNA segments (2219 bp) was sequenced and corresponds to the gene encoding the capsid protein of B. cinerea CCg378 virus 1 (Bc378V1), a putative new member of the Partitiviridae family. Furthermore, physiological parameters related to the degree of virulence of the fungus, such as the sporulation rate and laccase activity, were lower in B. cinerea CCg378 and B. cinerea CKg54vi378 than in B. cinerea CKg54. Additionally, bioassays performed on grapevine leaves showed that the CCg378 and CKg54vi378 strains presented a lower degree of invasiveness on the plant tissue than the CKg54 strain.ConclusionsThe results show that B. cinerea CCg378 is coinfected by two mycoviruses and that the 2.2-kbp dsRNAs correspond to the 32-nm mycovirus genome, which would be a new member of the Partitiviridae family as it has the typical pattern of partitiviruses. On the other hand, the results suggest that the hypovirulence of B. cinerea CCg378 could be conferred by both mycoviruses, since the fungal clone B. cinerea CKg54vi378 presents an intermediate virulence between the CKg54 and CCg378 strains. Therefore, the putative partitivirus would be partially contributing to the hypovirulence phenotype of the CCg378 strain.

Dataset Information

Profile and functional analysis of small RNAs derived from Aspergillus fumigatus infected with double-stranded RNA mycoviruses.

Publications

Profile and functional analysis of small RNAs derived from Aspergillus fumigatus infected with double-stranded RNA mycoviruses.

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