{
  "abstract": "Large-scale mining of public transcriptomic datasets can reveal viral diversity that remains invisible to conventional virus-surveillance approaches, while increasingly powerful structure-prediction methods provide a complementary route to characterizing highly divergent viral proteins. Here, we combine sequence detection, phylogenetic analysis, structural prediction, and host-association analyses to investigate the cryptic diversity and biology of a new clade of plant-associated lispi-like viruses. Analyses of RNA-sequencing datasets identified and enabled assembly of 87 coding-complete lispi-like virus genome sequences associated with 75 plant hosts, expanding the known diversity of this new group by approximately 40-fold. The viruses share a conserved four-cistron genome organization, 3'-N(P1)-P2-P3-L(P4)-5', in which the first cistron is referred to interchangeably as N or P1 and the fourth as L or P4. Structural analyses generate testable structural hypotheses for the four conserved proteins. N (P1) adopts a canonical negative-strand RNA virus nucleocapsid architecture with conserved RNA-interacting residues and a predicted RNA-packaging configuration. P2 is exceptionally divergent, although a subset of structures resembles the ITPase/HAM1 fold. P3 forms a conserved trimeric coiled-coil architecture reminiscent of a viral fusion-protein stalk, but lacks the family-wide sequence features expected of a canonical membrane glycoprotein. L (P4) contains a structurally resolved Mononegavirales-type RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (RdRp) core with invariant catalytic motifs, including the characteristic GDN signature, whereas its accessory regions are substantially more divergent. Phylogenetic insights form a distinct monophyletic lineage sister to the predominantly invertebrate-associated Lispiviridae, supporting their recognition as the new proposed family Masuviridae, comprising 15 tentative genera. Genus-level clustering is accompanied by marked differences in host association, ranging from strong specialization to broader host ranges. Retrospective screening of public sequencing libraries further identified lispi-like virus sequences in 1536 libraries representing 134 plant species, 11 plant families and 182 geographic locations, highlighting a substantial and geographically widespread cryptic virome. Together, these results establish Masuviridae as a deeply divergent lineage of plant-associated negative-sense RNA viruses and illustrate how the integration of sequence, structural, and large-scale transcriptomic analyses can move viral dark matter from detection towards evolutionary and functional characterization.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "Instituto de Patología Vegetal, Centro de Investigaciones Agropecuarias, Instituto Nacional de Tecnología Agropecuaria (IPAVE-CIAP-INTA), Cordoba 5020, Argentina.",
    "Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Unidad de Fitopatología y Modelización Agrícola, Cordoba 5020, Argentina.",
    "Department of Molecular Genetics, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3E2, Canada.",
    "Department of Plant Pathology, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, MN 55108, USA.",
    "Facultad de Ciencias de la Vida, Escuela Superior Politécnica del Litoral, R2XV+55, Guayaquil 090902, Ecuador."
  ],
  "article_type": "research article",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1
      ],
      "name": "Nicolás Bejerman",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-7851-3506"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        2
      ],
      "name": "David Huebert",
      "orcid": "0009-0001-9841-0213"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        3
      ],
      "name": "Robert Alvarez-Quinto"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        4
      ],
      "name": "Diego Quito-Avila",
      "orcid": "0000-0002-6170-1113"
    },
    {
      "affs": [
        0,
        1,
        2
      ],
      "name": "Humberto Debat",
      "orcid": "0000-0003-3056-3739"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6tj2dzbf7b9q1.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.3390/v18101113",
  "fulltext_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13709462",
  "id": "6tj2dzbf7b9q1",
  "issns": [
    "1999-4915"
  ],
  "landing_url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42944033",
  "language": "eng",
  "licence": "CC-BY",
  "licence_label": "CC BY",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "openalex",
      "1110|Plant Virus Research Studies"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": "W7220917345",
  "pdf_url": "https://europepmc.org/articles/PMC13709462?pdf=render",
  "pmcid": "PMC13709462",
  "pmid": "42944033",
  "published": "2026-10-08",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6tj2dzbf7b9q1.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-30T12:22:24Z",
      "native_id": "MED:42944033",
      "source": "europepmc",
      "url": "https://europepmc.org/article/MED/42944033"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "openalex:1110|Plant Virus Research Studies",
      "subfield": "plant-biology"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Data Mining Sheds Light on a Novel Family of Plant-Associated Negative-Sense RNA Viruses Linked to Lispiviruses.",
  "title_text": "Data Mining Sheds Light on a Novel Family of Plant-Associated Negative-Sense RNA Viruses Linked to Lispiviruses.",
  "type": "peer-reviewed",
  "updated_at": "2026-10-30T12:22:24Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/6tj2dzbf7b9q1",
  "venue": "Viruses",
  "versions": [
    {
      "doi": "10.64898/2026.09.18.752651",
      "pid": "chdm56qj40mh1",
      "relation": "preprint",
      "title": "Data mining sheds light on a novel family of plant-associated negative-sense RNA viruses linked to lispiviruses",
      "venue": "bioRxiv"
    }
  ]
}