DNase Treatment Improves Viral Enrichment in Agricultural Soil Viromes
Jackson W. Sorensen, Laura Zinke, Anneliek M. ter Horst, Christian Santos‐Medellín, Alena L. Schroeder, Joanne Emerson
Abstract
Viromics is becoming an increasingly popular method for characterizing soil viral communities. DNase treatment of the viral size fraction prior to DNA extraction is meant to reduce contaminating free DNA and is a common step within viromics protocols to ensure that sequences are of viral origin. However, some samples may not be amenable to DNase treatment due to viral particles being compromised either in storage (i.e., frozen) or during other sample processing steps. To date, the effect of DNase treatment on the recovery of viruses and downstream ecological interpretations of soil viral communities is not thoroughly understood. This work sheds light on these questions and indicates that while DNase treatment of soil viromes improves the recovery of viral populations, this improvement is modest in comparison to the gains made by viromics over total soil metagenomics. Furthermore, DNase treatment may not be necessary to observe the ecological patterns structuring soil viral communities.