Research
University of North Carolina at Charlotte
microbial oceanography • computational biology • metagenomics
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Viral impacts on microbial carbon cycling
Sampling deep-sea microbial communities using ROV (remotely-operated vehicle) Jason aboard the R/V (research vessel) Thompson in summer 2022.
Live display, from the control van of ROV Jason, of hydrothermal vents at Axial Seamount in the Juan de Fuca Ridge off the Oregon coast.
Exploratory metagenomic studies can uncover an unprecedented amount of microbial diversity. Linking genomic diversity to function remains an ongoing challenge to the field of environmental microbiology, particularly for viral populations with under-explored genetic diversitys. Our lab is developing a technique combining metagenomics with stable isotope probing to identify key viral populations responsible for carbon cycling in novel microbial communities.
Diversity, spatiotemporal variability, and biogeochemical impacts of giant viruses
Giant viruses, with genomes and physical sizes that rival those of known cells, challenge our preconceptions on the biological differences between viruses and cells. This project utilizes high-throughput metagenomics sequencing data at Station ALOHA to address these questions:
What is the diversity, population structure, and spatiotemporal variability of giant viruses in the open ocean?
How might giant viruses contribute to vertical transport and carbon sequestration to the deep sea?
Size comparison of cells, giant viruses, and other viruses
Biogeochemical and ecological impacts of viral parasites
Contemporary metagenomic approaches, such as hybrid short- and long-read sequencing, have potential to reveal novel classes of life-forms in natural microbial communities, such as virus-induced mobile genetic elements (“viral parasites”). While viruses depend on cellular host metabolism to synthesize DNA and structural proteins for reproduction, viral parasites are mobile genetic elements that lack most viral genes required for producing viruses. Instead, these free-loaders parasitize viral particles by replacing another virus's DNA with their own (right). We are interested in these following questions:
How might they impact the rate of viral production and carbon transformation from cells to organic matter?
What role do they play in the sustainability of marine communities, e.g. though horizontal gene transfer, virulence and disease, and virus-host interactions (is "the enemy of my enemy my friend"?)
Viral parasites are mobile genetic elements that reside in cellular genomes. These elements cannot mobilize (hop from cellular host to another) without the presence of another "helper virus". When this helper virus infects the cell, the parasite hijacks the virus's replicative machinery, replacing viral DNA with its own. Figure adapted from Luo 2020 ScholarSpace
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