Photosynthetic Reaction Centre Protein Family - in Viruses

In Viruses

Photosynthetic reaction centre genes from PSII (PsbA, PsbD) have been discovered within marine bacteriophage. Though it is widely accepted dogma that arbitrary pieces of DNA can be borne by phage between hosts (transduction), one would hardly expect to find transduced DNA within a large number of viruses. Transduction is presumed to be common in general, but for any single piece of DNA to be routinely transduced would be highly unexpected. Instead, conceptually, a gene routinely found in surveys of viral DNA would have to be a functional element of the virus itself (this does not imply that the gene would not be transferred among hosts - which the photosystem within viruses is - but instead that there is a viral function for the gene, that it is not merely hitchhiking with the virus). However, free viruses lack the machinery needed to support metabolism, let alone photosynthesis. As a result, photosystem genes are not likely to be a functional component of the virus like a capsid protein or tail fibre. Instead, it is expressed within an infected host cell. Most virus genes that are expressed in the host context are useful for hijacking the host machinery to produce viruses or for replication of the viral genome. These can include reverse transcriptases, integrases, nucleases or other enzymes. Photosystem components do not fit this mould either. The production of an active photosystem during viral infection provides active photosynthesis to dying cells. This is not viral altruism towards the host, however. The problem with viral infections tends to be that they disable the host relatively rapidly. As protein expression is shunted from the host genome to the viral genome, the photosystem degrades relatively rapidly (due in part to the interaction with light, which is highly corrosive), cutting off the supply of nutrients to the replicating virus. A solution to this problem is to add rapidly degraded photosystem genes to the virus, such that the nutrient flow is uninhibited and more viruses are produced. One would expect that this discovery will lead to other discoveries of a similar nature; that elements of the host metabolism key to viral production and easily damaged during infection are actively replaced or supported by the virus during infection.

Indeed, recently, PSI gene cassettes containing whole gene suites were also reported to exist in marine cyanophages from the Pacific and Indian Oceans