Abstract:
Mycoviruses pervade the fungal kingdom, yet their diversity within various fungal families and genera remains largely unexplored.
In this study, 10 publicly available fungal transcriptomes from Ceratocystidaceae were analyzed for the presence of
mycoviruses. Despite mycovirus associations being known in only four members of this family, our investigation unveiled
the discovery of six novel mycoviruses. The majority of these mycoviruses are composed of positive sense single stranded
RNA and are putatively assigned to the viral family Mitoviridae (with tentative classification into the genera Unuamitovirus
and Duamitovirus). The double stranded RNA viruses, however, were associated with the family Totiviridae (with tentative
classification into the genus Victorivirus). This study also revealed the discovery of an identical unuamitovirus in the fungal
species Thielaviopsis ethacetica and Thielaviopsis paradoxa. This discovery was notable as these fungal isolates originated
from distinct geographical locations, highlighting potential implications for the transmission of this mitovirus. Moreover, this
investigation significantly expands the known host range for mycoviruses in this family, marking the initial identification of
mycoviruses within Ceratocystis platani, Thielaviopsis paradoxa, Thielaviopsis ethacetica, and Huntiella omanensis. Future
research should focus on determining the effects that these mycoviruses might have on their fungal hosts.
Description:
DATA AVAILABILITY : The transcriptomes used in the identification of viral
sequences in this study are publicly available on the National Center
for Biotechnology Information Sequencing Reads Archive. The accession
numbers for these are indicated in Table 1, provided within the
manuscript. The sequence data of all viruses identified this study have
been deposited in the National Center for Biotechnology Information
with the primary accession codes BK065014-BK065021.
