Virome analysis of the Beilun River

Viruses are abundant and ubiquitous in the environment, exerting significant impacts on ecosystem functioning, biogeochemical cycles, and food web dynamics. They can influence microbial community composition and nutrient cycling by lysing host bacteria, or affect microbial genetics and metabolism by transduction, transferring genes to microbial hosts. Some phages can also carry partial bacterial DNA, including antibiotic resistance genes, which may play a significant role in ARG dissemination. Although community surveys can be conducted using metagenomic sequencing and bioinformatics analysis, the sequencing depth may not be sufficient to comprehensively understand the viral community structure and functional genes. Therefore, it is necessary to use newer sequencing technology to develop the plastisphere virus community in depth to fully assess the ecological risks it poses. We employed virome analysis technology to analyze the plastic viral community, offering new insights into assessing environmental risks posed by virus in plastic environments and horizontal gene transfer to microbial communities.