Dynamics of the DNA Viral Community in Korean Coastal Waters

TL;DR

This study explores DNA viruses in Korean coastal waters, revealing diverse viral communities and providing a dataset for future research.

Contribution

The study provides a comprehensive dataset of DNA viral communities in Korean coastal waters, including environmental parameters and taxonomic profiles.

Findings

754 DNA viral contigs were identified from Korean coastal water samples, with bacteriophages being the most abundant.

Environmental data and viral taxonomic profiles were compiled to support comparative marine virome studies.

Puniceispirillum phage HMO-2011 and Micromonas pusilla virus 12 T were the most abundant viruses in their groups.

Abstract

Recent advances in metaviromics have revealed vast viral diversity across aquatic environments, yet coastal marine viromes remain underexplored compared to their open-ocean counterparts. In this study, we analyzed 49 surface water samples from 16 coastal sites around Korea, generating 265 gigabases of metagenomic sequence data. Following quality control, 754 DNA viral contigs of ≥10 kb (medium quality or higher) were recovered, with bacteriophages comprising 95% and nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses (NCLDVs) 5% of the total. Among these, Puniceispirillum phage HMO-2011 and Micromonas pusilla virus 12 T exhibited the highest relative abundance within their respective groups. In addition, we provided the dataset of environmental parameters such as water temperature, salinity, etc., as well as viral taxonomic profiling of contig-level metadata. This dataset provides a resource for the investigation of coastal DNA viral communities and supports comparative studies across marine environments.

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