Advances in sequencing technologies and bioinformatics have led to a breakthrough in the study of viral diversity, but viruses of most soil animals (except ants) remain largely unstudied. Millipedes (Diplopoda, Myriapoda) are one of the most diverse (about 12,000 described species) and functionally important groups of soil arthropods. A team of virologists and zoologists from the Chumakov Federal Center, the Severtsov Institute of Ecology and Evolution of the Russian Academy of Sciences (IEE RAS), and the Tropical Center studied 14 species of tropical millipedes. Complete coding genomes of 16 viruses, partial coding genomes of 10 viruses, and several viral sequences that may indicate the presence of about 50 more viruses were collected and annotated. Most of the detected viruses are very distant from viruses represented in the databases. At least eight viruses meet the criteria for a new species, and for two of them a higher taxonomic status (genus and even family) can be proposed.
The work was published in the journal Viruses: Litov A.G., Semenyuk I.I., Belova O.A., Polienko A.E., Thinh N.V., Karganova G.G., Tiunov A.V. (2024) Extensive diversity of viruses in millipedes collected in the Dong Nai Biosphere Reserve (Vietnam). Viruses, 16: 1486.