Chromoanagenesis is a driver of structural variation in the smallest photosynthetic eukaryote
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Marine microalgae populations can rapidly evolve resistance to viruses upon infection. In Ostreococcus mediterraneus resistance to the prasinovirus OmV2 emerged within five days in all virus-exposed populations. Whole-genome sequencing of pairs of resistant and susceptible cell lines revealed extensive structural genomic changes, particularly on the Small Outlier Chromosome (SOC). SOC alterations included large deletions, duplications, rearrangements, and whole chromosome duplication, yet no consistent structural variant or single nucleotide polymorphism could be directly associated with resistance. Hybrid de novo assemblies confirmed the unique SOC assembly of each strain, with a highly polymorphic ∼2 kb tandem repeat region exhibiting an "accordion-like" pattern of expansion and contraction. No new viral insertions were found, though endogenous viral elements were conserved across lines. Two interchromosomal translocations between the SOC and chromosomes 2 and 17 provide evidence for chromoplexy, thereby offering novel insights into the mechanisms underlying the distinctive evolutionary path of this chromosome. Together, these findings demonstrate that resistance to OmV2 evolves rapidly and consistently but cannot yet be linked to any specific structural variations; instead, the high rate of localized genomic structural variations points to a distinct mechanism of chromosome evolution.
Significance
The mechanisms and consequences of structural variation remain poorly understood in many lineages, particularly in ecologically important marine microbes. This study shows that resistance to prasinovirus OmV2 in a cosmopolitan phytoplankton species, Ostreococcus mediterraneus evolves rapidly and consistently, even though no resistance-associated SNPs or shared structural variants were identified on standard chromosomes. Instead, extensive genomic rearrangements—particularly of a single chromosome—occur independently of viral infection. These findings highlight the role of chromoplexy as the driving mechanism underlying the diversification of the enigmatic Small Outlier Chromosome in this lineage.
