Temperate Infection in a Virusâ

UC Merced UC Merced Previously Published Works Title Temperate infection in a virus-host system previously known for virulent dynamics. Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/58v0485d Journal Nature communications, 11(1) ISSN 2041-1723 Authors Knowles, Ben Bonachela, Juan A Behrenfeld, Michael J et al. Publication Date 2020-09-15 DOI 10.1038/s41467-020-18078-4 Peer reviewed eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California ARTICLE https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18078-4 OPEN Temperate infection in a virus–host system previously known for virulent dynamics ✉ Ben Knowles 1 , Juan A. Bonachela 2, Michael J. Behrenfeld3, Karen G. Bondoc 1, B. B. Cael4, Craig A. Carlson5, Nick Cieslik1, Ben Diaz1, Heidi L. Fuchs 1, Jason R. Graff3, Juris A. Grasis 6, Kimberly H. Halsey 7, Liti Haramaty1, Christopher T. Johns1, Frank Natale1, Jozef I. Nissimov8, Brittany Schieler1, Kimberlee Thamatrakoln 1, T. Frede Thingstad9, Selina Våge9, Cliff Watkins1, ✉ Toby K. Westberry 3 & Kay D. Bidle 1 1234567890():,; The blooming cosmopolitan coccolithophore Emiliania huxleyi and its viruses (EhVs) are a model for density-dependent virulent dynamics. EhVs commonly exhibit rapid viral reproduction and drive host death in high-density laboratory cultures and mesocosms that simulate blooms. Here we show that this system exhibits physiology-dependent temperate dynamics at environmentally relevant E. huxleyi host densities rather than virulent dynamics, with viruses switching from a long-term non-lethal temperate phase in healthy hosts to a lethal lytic stage as host cells become physiologically stressed. Using this system as a model for temperate infection dynamics, we present a template to diagnose temperate infection in other virus–host systems by integrating experimental, theoretical, and environmental approaches. Finding temperate dynamics in such an established virulent host–virus model system indicates that temperateness may be more pervasive than previously considered, and that the role of viruses in bloom formation and decline may be governed by host physiology rather than by host–virus densities. 1 Department of Marine and Coastal Science, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA. 2 Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Natural Resources, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ 08901, USA. 3 Department of Botany and Plant Pathology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA. 4 National Oceanography Centre, SO14 3ZH Southampton, UK. 5 Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Marine Biology, University of California Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. 6 School of Natural Sciences, University of California Merced, Merced, CA 95343, USA. 7 Department of Microbiology, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR 97331, USA. 8 Department of Biology and the Waterloo Centre for Microbial Research, University of Waterloo, Waterloo, ON N2L 3G1, Canada. 9 Marine Microbiology Research Group, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Bergen, 5020 ✉ Bergen, Norway. email: [email protected]; [email protected] NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | (2020) 11:4626 | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18078-4 | www.nature.com/naturecommunications 1 ARTICLE NATURE COMMUNICATIONS | https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18078-4 iruses routinely terminate phytoplankton blooms. This Recent work has shown the dominance of more-virulent process is thought to be the outcome of density-dependent phytoplankton viruses in the laboratory and less-virulent viruses V 28 dynamics, where rising phytoplankton cell densities drive in the environment . Building on this observation, we sought to increased virus–host encounters and therefore infection. If these determine if the “rules of infection” in the E. huxleyi-EhV system viruses are from virulent, purely lytic lineages, then they will were conserved across nutrient-enriched laboratory and meso- rapidly replicate and kill their hosts upon infection regardless of cosm conditions with host densities of ~105–106 cells per milli- host physiological state or environmental conditions. This makes liter and environmental conditions with densities of ≤103 cells per virus–host encounters, infection, viral reproduction and host milliliter. In laboratory experiments, the most virulent viruses in death equivalent in virulent systems, and allows virus–host our culture collection28,36 showed virulent phenotypes at high dynamics and viral infection to be modeled theoretically as a initial host densities and temperate, physiology-dependent direct outcome of readily quantifiable host and viral abundances: dynamics at natural initial densities where induction was trig- when host and viral densities rise, so does infection, lysis, and gered by cellular stress, consistent with other microbiological rates of lysis-mediated biogeochemical cycling1–5. As viral- systems8,10. Theoretical modeling and statistical analysis resolved mediated processes like the turnover and redistribution of this seeming paradox by showing that high host densities trigger energy and matter from lysed cells are driven by viral lysis6,7, induction, making temperate viruses behave like virulent viruses these models focus on how and under what conditions viruses kill at these high densities as they initiate lysis rapidly after estab- their hosts. Altogether, this has led to a virulent-centric view of lishing infection. Guided by these insights, we revisited data sets how viruses drive host diversification, global biogeochemistry, from nutrient-enriched, high-density environmental mesocosms and termination of blooms, with host lysis and associated viral established as models of virulent infection31 and found that production commonly viewed as evidence of virulent infection. natural E. huxleyi and EhV populations also exhibit temperate However, viruses exhibit a spectrum of infection strategies infection dynamics. As a result, even apparently virulent infection from virulent to temperate. Like virulent viruses, temperate viral dynamics are equally likely to be temperate in this model virlent lineages are subject to density-dependent encounter-driven virus–host system. This provides a mandate to revisit whether infection when they are extracellular, and can immediately other seemingly virulent virus–host systems possess temperate- initiate viral replication and host lysis upon successful infection. ness using our analytical template that integrates laboratory, In addition to extracellular transmission, temperate viruses can theoretical, and environmental analyses. Taken together, we become dormant after infection and be passed on intracellularly present an empirically derived physiology-dependent model of with replicating host cells. This effectively decouples infection phytoplankton bloom and decline governed by “bottom-up” from host death, minimizing deleterious environmental expo- limitation triggering “top-down” control. In this model, tempe- sure8, and allows viruses to time lysis for optimal reproduction rate viruses transition from pervasive, long-term, non-lethal and persistence9. Temperate infection outcomes are commonly temperate infection of healthy hosts (virus–host “Détente”)as dependent on host physiology rather than densities, with the blooms form to killing off ailing host populations once they viruses initiating replication and killing of their hosts (“induc- become physiologically stressed as blooms peak (viral-mediated tion”) after sensing either host stress10–12, extracellular conditions “Coup de Grâce”). conducive to subsequent lytic infection13, or loss of host ability to actively suppress resident viruses. Induction may occur at any Results and discussion host density. Although understudied in eukaryotic phyto- Infection at experimental and natural E. huxleyi densities. The plankton, extrapolation from temperate bacterial virus (bac- – E. huxleyi-EhV system is a fundamental model of virulent triophage) studies8,14 20 suggests that temperate infection is more infection dynamics. Infection in high-density lab cultures and frequent than virulent infection in nature and likely drives bio- nutrient-amended, eutrophic mesocosms (105–106 cells per mil- geochemical cycling, host and viral diversification, and bloom liliter; “crowded” densities) result in host death and bloom ter- dynamics in ways that are markedly divergent from those – mination within days25,31,37 39. In stark contrast, natural E. expected under virulent infection. Consequently, the mechanisms huxleyi bloom densities across the global ocean are almost of temperate infection and induction stand to fundamentally exclusively 103 cells per milliliter or less (hereafter referred to as revise our understanding of how viruses impact phytoplankton “sparse” densities; Fig. 1a, left panel inset; Supplementary Fig. 1), blooms, ecosystem dynamics, and host–virus evolution. where infection and viral-mediated lysis of hosts has been To our knowledge, all eukaryotic phytoplankton-virus systems observed34,40. examined to date have been characterized as virulent, thereby framing phytoplankton bloom dynamics within this virulent perspective (although lysogeny has been shown in cyanobacterial Temperate infection in the E. huxleyi system. To determine phytoplankton21,22 and considered in free-living23 and host- whether virulent “rules of infection” are conserved across dis- associated24 eukaryotic algae). The cosmopolitan coccolithophore parate experimental and natural host densities, we conducted Emiliania huxleyi and its Coccolithoviruses (EhVs) are

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