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. 2018 Nov 13;10(11):628.
doi: 10.3390/v10110628.

Detection of a Conspecific Mycovirus in Two Closely Related Native and Introduced Fungal Hosts and Evidence for Interspecific Virus Transmission

Corine N Schoebel  1 , Simone Prospero  2 , Andrin Gross  3 , Daniel Rigling  4
Affiliations

Detection of a Conspecific Mycovirus in Two Closely Related Native and Introduced Fungal Hosts and Evidence for Interspecific Virus Transmission

Corine N Schoebel et al. Viruses. .

Abstract

Hymenoscyphus albidus is a native fungus in Europe where it behaves as a harmless decomposer of leaves of common ash. Its close relative Hymenoscyphus fraxineus was introduced into Europe from Asia and currently threatens ash (Fraxinus sp.) stands all across the continent causing ash dieback. H. fraxineus isolates from Europe were previously shown to harbor a mycovirus named Hymenoscyphus fraxineus Mitovirus 1 (HfMV1). In the present study, we describe a conspecific mycovirus that we detected in H. albidus. HfMV1 was consistently identified in H. albidus isolates (mean prevalence: 49.3%) which were collected in the sampling areas before the arrival of ash dieback. HfMV1 strains in both fungal hosts contain a single ORF of identical length (717 AA) for which a mean pairwise identity of 94.5% was revealed. The occurrence of a conspecific mitovirus in H. albidus and H. fraxineus is most likely the result of parallel virus evolution in the two fungal hosts. HfMV1 sequences from H. albidus showed a higher nucleotide diversity and a higher number of mutations compared to those from H. fraxineus, probably due to a bottleneck caused by the introduction of H. fraxineus in Europe. Our data also points to multiple interspecific virus transfers from H. albidus to H. fraxineus, which could have contributed to the intraspecific virus diversity found in H. fraxineus.

Keywords: Chalara fraxinea; Hymenoscyphus pseudoalbidus; Narnaviridae; ash dieback; evolution; horizontal virus transmission; invasive species.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Geographic origin of the Swiss Hymenoscyphus albidus and H. fraxineus samples analyzed in this study. Grey tones display the year of first report of ash dieback. Light grey lines display Swiss canton borders. Abbreviations: S-CH: Southern Switzerland, SW-CH: South-Western Switzerland, N-CH: Northern Switzerland. Modified after [41].
Figure 2
Figure 2
Phylogenetic tree resulting from the MrBayes analysis conducted with 40 (8 H. albidus, 32 H. fraxineus) full sequences (2151 bp) of the RdRP gene of the mitovirus HfMV1. Green color depicts HfMV1 H. albidus group isolates. Black color depicts HfMV1 group 2 isolates and orange color HfMV1 group 1 isolates. Blue color and *** marks H. fraxineus isolates within the H. albidus group. Hf characterizes viral sequences from H. fraxineus, Ha from H. albidus isolates. For abbreviation see Table 1. Posterior probabilities are shown at the respective branch if they were >0.95. Arrows indicate intermixing of H. albidus and H. fraxineus HfMV1 sequences.
Figure 3
Figure 3
MrBayes analysis conducted with 255 sequences of the partial RdRP gene (495 bp) of the mitovirus HfMV1. Green color depicts H. albidus isolates. Posterior probabilities are shown at the respective branch if they were >0.95. Each sample is named with the sampling year, followed by the sampling locality (for abbreviation see Table 1) and sample name. Arrows indicate intermixing of H. albidus and H. fraxineus HfMV1 sequences. Samples marked in bold and italics are included in the full-length analysis.
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