Evidence of pervasive biologically functional secondary-structures within the genomes of eukaryotic single-stranded DNA viruses

Type of content
Journal Article
Thesis discipline
Degree name
Publisher
University of Canterbury. Biological Sciences
University of Canterbury. Biomolecular Interaction Centre
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
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Date
2014
Authors
Muhire, B.M.
Golden, M.
Murrell, B.
Lefeuvre, P.
Lett, J-M.
Gray, A.
Poon, A.Y.F.
Ngandu, N.K.
Semegni, Y.
Tanov, E.P.
Abstract

Single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) viruses have genomes that are potentially capable of forming complex secondary structures through Watson-Crick base pairing between their constituent nucleotides. A few of the structural elements formed by such base pairings are, in fact, known to have important functions during the replication of many ssDNA viruses. Unknown, however, are (i) whether numerous additional ssDNA virus genomic structural elements predicted to exist by computational DNA folding methods actually exist and (ii) whether those structures that do exist have any biological relevance. We therefore computationally inferred lists of the most evolutionarily conserved structures within a diverse selection of animal- and plant-infecting ssDNA viruses drawn from the families Circoviridae, Anelloviridae, Parvoviridae, Nanoviridae, and Geminiviridae and analyzed these for evidence of natural selection favoring the maintenance of these structures. While we find evidence that is consistent with purifying selection being stronger at nucleotide sites that are predicted to be base paired than at sites predicted to be unpaired, we also find strong associations between sites that are predicted to pair with one another and site pairs that are apparently coevolving in a complementary fashion. Collectively, these results indicate that natural selection actively preserves much of the pervasive secondary structure that is evident within eukaryote-infecting ssDNA virus genomes and, therefore, that much of this structure is biologically functional. Lastly, we provide examples of various highly conserved but completely uncharacterized structural elements that likely have important functions within some of the ssDNA virus genomes analyzed here.

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Citation
Muhire, B.M., Golden, M., Murrell, B., Lefeuvre, P., Lett, J-M., Gray, A., Poon, A.Y.F., Ngandu, N.K., Semegni, Y., Tanov, E.P., Monjane, A.L., Harkins, G.W., Varsani, A., Shepherd, D.N., Martin, D.P. (2014) Evidence of pervasive biologically functional secondary-structures within the genomes of eukaryotic single-stranded DNA viruses. Journal of Virology, 88(4), pp. 1972–1989.
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Ngā upoko tukutuku/Māori subject headings
ANZSRC fields of research
Fields of Research::31 - Biological sciences::3105 - Genetics::310508 - Genome structure and regulation
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