Quantitative Assessment of Nucleocytoplasmic Large DNA Virus and Host Interactions Predicted by Co-occurrence Analyses
Lingjie Meng, Hisashi Endo, Romain Blanc‐Mathieu, Samuel Chaffron, Rodrigo Hernández-Velázquez, Hiroto Kaneko, Hiroyuki Ogata
Abstract
NCLDVs can infect a wide range of eukaryotes, although their life cycle is less dependent on hosts compared to other viruses. However, our understanding of NCLDV-host systems is highly limited because few of these viruses have been isolated so far. Co-occurrence information has been assumed to be useful to predict virus-host interactions. In this study, we quantitatively show the effectiveness of co-occurrence inference for NCLDV host prediction. We also improve the prediction performance with a phylogeny-guided method, which leads to a concise list of candidate host lineages for three NCLDV families. Our results underpin the usage of co-occurrence approaches for the metagenomic exploration of the ecology of this diverse group of viruses.