Virus-virus interaction strategies: Understanding functional strategies when multiple viruses co-infect a single host (mVish)

Viral infection through its top-down control on aquatic bacteria not only impacts their dynamics and evolution, but also influences biogeochemical cycles. In productive freshwater lakes, viruses outnumber their bacterial host by approximately tenfold.

Existing studies on viral ecology and evolution focus on single viruses infecting a single host and this simplification prevents a deeper understanding of virus-virus interactions.

We are still far from comprehending the full extent of viral co-infection of a single host population at ecosystem level and the mechanisms underpinning virus-virus interactions.

In this project I integrate high-throughput multi-omics analyses and proximity ligation sequencing (metaHiC) to identify viruses capable of infecting the same host population.

This is combined with model pathosystems of multiple viruses co-infecting a single host population (mVish) to study interaction mechanisms.

This will provide novel insights on virus-virus interactions and how to incorporate them in studying the ecology and evolution of viruses and their hosts in freshwater ecosystems by answering two main questions Q1) how prevalent is it that multiple viruses co-infect a single host in freshwater ecosystems?

Q2) how do viruses interact in the mVish model pathosystems and how does the co-infection affect the bacterial host?