Novel Abundant Oceanic Viruses of Uncultured Marine Group II Euryarchaeota

Abstract

Marine group II Euryarchaeota (MG-II) are among the most abundant microbes in oceanic surface waters [1-4]. So far, however, representatives of MG-II have not been cultivated, and no viruses infecting these organisms have been described. Here, we present complete genomes for three distinct groups of viruses assembled from metagenomic sequence datasets highly enriched for MG-II. These novel viruses, which we denote magroviruses, possess double-stranded DNA genomes of 65 to 100 kilobases in size that encode a structural module characteristic of head-tailed viruses and, unusually for archaeal and bacterial viruses, a nearly complete replication apparatus of apparent archaeal origin. The newly identified magroviruses are widespread and abundant and therefore are likely to be major ecological agents.

Keywords: DNA polymerase; archaea; marine; phage; replication; virus.