Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 116, Issue 49, Pages 24738-24747Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1903903116
Keywords
Caenorhabditis; vertical transmission; viral RNA-dependent RNA polymerase; bunyavirus; narnavirus
Categories
Funding
- NIH [R21 AI119917, R01 AI134967]
- Agence Nationale pour la Recherche Grant [ANR-11-BSV3-013]
- Fondation pour la Recherche Medicale Grant [DEQ20150331704]
Ask authors/readers for more resources
Here, we report on the discovery in Caenorhabditis nematodes of multiple vertically transmitted RNAs coding for putative RNA-dependent RNA polymerases. Their sequences share similarity to distinct RNA viruses, including bunyaviruses, narnaviruses, and sobemoviruses. The sequences are present exclusively as RNA and are not found in DNA form. The RNAs persist in progeny after bleach treatment of adult animals, indicating vertical transmission of the RNAs. We tested one of the infected strains for transmission to an uninfected strain and found that mating of infected animals with uninfected animals resulted in infected progeny. By in situ hybridization, we detected several of these RNAs in the cytoplasm of the male and female germline of the nematode host. The Caenorhabditis hosts were found defective in degrading exogenous double-stranded RNAs, which may explain retention of viral-like RNAs. Strikingly, one strain, QG551, harbored three distinct virus-like RNA elements. Specific patterns of small RNAs complementary to the different viral-like RNAs were observed, suggesting that the different RNAs are differentially recognized by the RNA interference (RNAi) machinery. While vertical transmission of viruses in the family Narnaviridae, which are known as capsidless viruses, has been described in fungi, these observations provide evidence that multicellular animal cells harbor similar viruses.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available