Journal
VIRUS RESEARCH
Volume 243, Issue -, Pages 83-90Publisher
ELSEVIER
DOI: 10.1016/j.virusres.2017.10.016
Keywords
Evolution; Metagenomics; Meta-transcriptomics; Phylogeny; Classification; Virosphere
Categories
Funding
- Special National Project on Research and Development of Key Biosafety Technologies [2016YFC1201900]
- 12th Five-Year Major National Science and Technology Projects of China [2014ZX10004001-005]
- National Natural Science Foundation of China [81290343, 81672057]
- NHMRC Australia Fellowship [GNT1037231]
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Metagenomics is transforming the study of virus evolution, allowing the full assemblage of virus genomes within a host sample to be determined rapidly and cheaply. The genomic analysis of complete transcriptomes, so-called meta-transcriptomics, is providing a particularly rich source of data on the global diversity of RNA viruses and their evolutionary history. Herein we review some of the insights that meta-transcriptomics has provided on the fundamental patterns and processes of virus evolution, with a focus on the recent discovery of a multitude of novel invertebrate viruses. In particular, meta-transcriptomics shows that the RNA virus world is more fluid than previously realized, with relatively frequent changes in genome length and structure. As well as having a transformative impact on studies of virus evolution, meta-transcriptomics presents major new challenges for virus classification, with the greater sampling of host taxa now filling many of the gaps on virus phylogenies that were previously used to define taxonomic groups. Given that most viruses in the future will likely be characterized using metagenomics approaches, and that we have evidently only sampled a tiny fraction of the total virosphere, we suggest that proposals for virus classification pay careful attention to the wonders unearthed in this new age of virus discovery.
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