Study of viral diversity in mollusks of Lake Baikal

The phylum Mollusca is the second most diverse invertebrate phylum after the Arthropoda. The high-throughput sequencing technologies have expanded the study of mollusk viruses in nature. It turned out that mollusks (as well as other invertebrates) are a storehouse of natural viral diversity; they can transmit and bioaccumulate various viruses from other organisms, including vertebrates. Most studies have primarily focused on marine mollusks, mostly bivalves and less often gastropods. In our study, we estimate the diversity of viruses in the Baikal mollusks (gastropods) using a metagenomic and metatranscriptomic approaches.