Although Australian marsupials are characterised by unique biology and geographic isolation, little is known about the viruses present in these iconic wildlife species. The Dasyuromorphia are an order of marsupial carnivores found only in Australia that include both the extinct Tasmanian tiger (Thylacine) and the highly threatened Tasmanian devil. Several other members of the order are similarly under threat of extinction due to habitat loss, hunting, disease, and competition and predation by introduced species such as feral cats. We utilised publicly available RNA-seq data from the NCBI Sequence Read Archive (SRA) database to document the viral diversity within four Dasyuromorph species. Accordingly, we identified 15 novel virus sequences from five DNA virus families (Adenoviridae, Anelloviridae, Gammaherpesvirinae, Papillomaviridae and Polyomaviridae) and three RNA virus taxa: the order Jingchuvirales, the genus Hepacivirus, and the delta-like virus group. Of particular note was the identification of a marsupial specific clade of delta-like viruses that may indicate an association of deltaviruses with marsupial species. In addition, we identified a highly divergent hepacivirus in a numbat liver transcriptome that falls outside of the larger mammalian clade. We also detect what may be the first Jingchuvirales virus in a mammalian host – a chu-like virus in Tasmanian devils – thereby expanding the host range beyond invertebrates and ectothermic vertebrates. As many of these Dasyuromorphia species are currently being used in translocation efforts to reseed populations across Australia, understanding their virome is of key importance to prevent the spread of viruses to naive populations.

中文翻译：

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澳大利亚有袋类食肉动物 (dasyurids) 中不同的肝炎病毒、δ 类病毒和 chu 类病毒

尽管澳大利亚有袋动物具有独特的生物学和地理隔离的特征，但人们对这些标志性野生动物物种中存在的病毒知之甚少。袋形目是仅在澳大利亚发现的有袋食肉动物目，其中包括已灭绝的塔斯马尼亚虎（袋狼）和高度威胁的塔斯马尼亚袋獾。由于栖息地丧失、狩猎、疾病以及野猫等外来物种的竞争和捕食，该目中的其他一些成员也同样面临灭绝的威胁。我们利用来自 NCBI 序列读取档案 (SRA) 数据库的公开 RNA 序列数据来记录四种 Dasyuromorph 物种内的病毒多样性。因此，我们从五个DNA病毒科（腺病毒科、指环病毒科、丙型疱疹病毒科、乳头瘤病毒科和多瘤病毒科）和三个RNA病毒分类群（荆楚病毒目、肝炎病毒属和δ样病毒群）中鉴定出15个新病毒序列。特别值得注意的是有袋动物特异性的 δ 样病毒进化枝的鉴定，这可能表明 δ 病毒与有袋动物物种之间存在关联。此外，我们在食蚁兽肝脏转录组中发现了一种高度分化的肝炎病毒，该病毒不属于较大的哺乳动物进化枝。我们还检测到了可能是哺乳动物宿主中的第一种荆楚病毒目病毒——塔斯马尼亚袋獾中的一种荆楚病毒，从而将宿主范围扩大到无脊椎动物和变温脊椎动物之外。由于许多这些Dasyuromorphia物种目前正在澳大利亚各地用于重新播种种群的易位工作，因此了解它们的病毒组对于防止病毒传播给幼稚种群至关重要。