Five Thousand Virus Genomes

Noble Research Institute, Llc, Ardmore OK

Investigators

Abstract

Viruses are a vital member of all complex ecosystems, from bacteria to animals to plants. They play a significant role in maintaining host population balance, productivity and sustainability in both domestic and wild animals and plants. Viruses also are critical in maintaining globally important ecosystem cycles such as the ocean's nutrient cycle. However, little is known about the viruses that inhabit these diverse communities as no comprehensive analyses of any terrestrial viruses have been undertaken. Therefore these investigations now will collect and analyze the genomes of at least 5,000 plant RNA virus from three major terrestrial tropical ecosystems: dry forest; cloud forest; and rain forest; and the intergrades between them that is located in the of the Area Conservacion Guanacaste in Costa Rica. This will be accomplished by collecting wild land plants from these well conserved wildlands, assessing any virus infection by analyzing the associated double-stranded RNA, and rapidly determining the viral genomic sequences using state-of-the art genome sequencing technology. These data will be publicly available through the internet and include improved bioinformatics tools to assess diversity, incidence, relationships and movement of the viruses. Data also will be deposited in a unique Taxonomy Node in GenBank to provide searchability to the scientific community. There will be a detailed analysis of thousands of viral genomes, most of which have never been described before. The viral genomes will be linked to their appropriate hosts, and the relationships of the complex viruses between wildlands and agricultural lands will be determined. These studies will be incorporated into the training of undergraduate and graduate students, by continuing strong commitments to actively involve undergraduate honors students and graduate students directly in the research. The investigators will host half-day visits by middle school and high school students with their teachers and continue the ongoing, well established, 6 week summer undergraduate training program in which there is an established record of seeking out and including minority student participation. Outreach to community and university groups will be maintained through presentations to local civic groups and university biology, biochemistry, chemistry, and engineering societies.