Isolation and characterization of a double stranded DNA megavirus infecting the toxin-producing haptophyte Prymnesium parvum

Ben A. Wagstaff, Iulia C. Vladu, J. Elaine Barclay, Declan C. Schroeder, Gill Malin, Robert A. Field

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

20 Scopus citations

Abstract

Prymnesium parvum is a toxin-producing haptophyte that causes harmful algal blooms globally, leading to large-scale fish kills that have severe ecological and economic implications. For the model haptophyte, Emiliania huxleyi, it has been shown that large dsDNA viruses play an important role in regulating blooms and therefore biogeochemical cycling, but much less work has been done looking at viruses that infect P. parvum, or the role that these viruses may play in regulating harmful algal blooms. In this study, we report the isolation and characterization of a lytic nucleo-cytoplasmic large DNA virus (NCLDV) collected from the site of a harmful P. parvum bloom. In subsequent experiments, this virus was shown to infect cultures of Prymnesium sp. and showed phylogenetic similarity to the extended Megaviridae family of algal viruses.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number40
JournalViruses
Volume9
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 9 2017

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2017 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.

Keywords

  • Algal bloom
  • Algal virus
  • Haptophyte
  • Megaviridae
  • NCLDV
  • Prymnesium parvum

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