Extremely halophilic pleomorphic archaeal virus HRPV9 extends the diversity of pleolipoviruses with integrases

摘要

Certain pleomorphic archaeal viruses are highly infectious even at saturated salt. These viruses belong to the genusBetapleolipovirusof the recently described archaeal virus familyPleolipoviridae. Pleolipoviruses comprise single-stranded or double-stranded, circular or linear DNA genomes that share countless homologues among various archaeal genetic elements. Here we describe a new extremely halophilic betapleolipovirus,Halorubrumpleomorphic virus 9 (HRPV9), which has an integrase gene. We also identified new genes encoding minor pleolipoviral structural proteins. The studies on HRPV9 enhance our knowledge on pleolipoviruses, especially their reciprocal relatedness and relation to certain archaeal plasmids, proviruses and membrane vesicles.