• Diversity of viroids and viroid-like age

    From ScienceDaily@1:317/3 to All on Tue Jan 31 21:30:22 2023
    Diversity of viroids and viroid-like agents

    Date:
    January 31, 2023
    Source:
    NIH/National Library of Medicine
    Summary:
    A team of researchers has developed a computational pipeline to
    identify and better understand viroids and viroid-like covalently
    closed circular RNAs (cccRNAs, also referred to as, simply,
    circular RNAs).


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    FULL STORY ==========================================================================
    A team of researchers from the National Library of Medicine (NLM)
    and collaborating academic research institutions have developed a
    computational pipeline to identify and better understand viroids and viroid-like covalently closed circular RNAs (cccRNAs, also referred to
    as, simply, circular RNAs).

    This is a type of single-stranded RNA which, unlike linear RNA, forms
    a covalently closed, continuous circle. Findings were published in the
    journal Cell.


    ========================================================================== Viroids are circular RNAs of only 250 to 400 nucleotides and are the
    smallest and simplest among the known infectious agents and have been
    believed to cause infections only in plants. The diversity of viroid
    and viroid-like RNAs has been poorly understood, which led researchers
    to investigate more about these sub-viral agents and their possible
    abundance in other environments and hosts.

    By searching a collection of 5,131 metatranscriptomes and 1,344 plant transcriptomes for viroid-like cccRNAs, researchers uncovered 11,378
    viroid- like cccRNAs spanning 4,409 species-level clusters. This
    finding was a five- fold increase compared to the previously identified viroid-like elements.

    Within this diverse collection, researchers discovered that this
    distinct class of pathogens is not limited in their spread to a
    few plants as previously thought but are common and abundant in all
    kinds of environments and hosts, comparable to the better-known RNA
    viruses. Furthermore, distant relatives of human Hepatitis Delta Virus (Hepatitis D) were discovered, shedding light on the origin of this
    important human pathogen, as well as completely novel types of viruses.

    "This work opens up new directions for researchers worldwide," said
    Eugene V.

    Koonin, PhD, a co-author of the study and senior investigator in the Computational Biology Branch of NLM's Intramural Research Program. "We
    are currently pursuing some follow up analyses," he added.

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    ========================================================================== Story Source: Materials provided by
    NIH/National_Library_of_Medicine. Note: Content may be edited for style
    and length.


    ========================================================================== Journal Reference:
    1. Benjamin D. Lee, Uri Neri, Simon Roux, Yuri I. Wolf, Antonio Pedro
    Camargo, Mart Krupovic, Peter Simmonds, Nikos Kyrpides, Uri Gophna,
    Valerian V. Dolja, Eugene V. Koonin. Mining metatranscriptomes
    reveals a vast world of viroid-like circular RNAs. Cell, 2023;
    DOI: 10.1016/ j.cell.2022.12.039 ==========================================================================

    Link to news story: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/01/230131160549.htm

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