Saline lakes on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau harbor unique viral assemblages mediating microbial environmental adaption

• Published in: iScience
• Main Authors: Gu, C, Liang, Y, Li, J, Shao, H, Jiang, Y, Zhou, X, Gao, C, Li, X, Zhang, W, Guo, C, He, H, Wang, H, Sung, YY, Mok, WJ, Wong, LL, Suttle, CA, McMinn, A, Tian, J, Wang, M
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Cell Press 2021
• Subjects: Biological Sciences; Microbiology; Virology; ice core
• Online Access: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2021.103439; http://ecite.utas.edu.au/147999

The highest plateau on Earth, Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, contains thousands of lakes with broad salinity and diverse and unique microbial communities. However, little is known about their co-occurring viruses. Herein, we identify 4,560 viral Operational Taxonomic Units (vOTUs) from six viromes of three saline lakes on Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, with less than 1% that could be classified. Most of the predicted vOTUs were associated with the dominant bacterial and archaeal phyla. Virus-encoded auxiliary metabolic genes suggest that viruses influence microbial metabolisms of carbon, nitrogen, sulfur, and lipid; the antibiotic resistance mediation; and their salinity adaption. The six viromes clustered together with the ice core viromes and bathypelagic ocean viromes and might represent a new viral habitat. This study has revealed the unique characteristics and potential ecological roles of DNA viromes in the lakes of the highest plateau and established a foundation for the recognition of the viral roles in plateau lake ecosystems.