Endogenous nege-like viral elements in arthropod genomes reveal virus–host coevolution and ancient history of two plant virus families

Although negevirus is phylogenetically related to plant virus, the evolutionary history of negevirus-host and its relationship with plant virus remain largely unknown. In this study, we used endogenous nege-like viral elements (ENVEs) as the molecular fossil records to investigate the history of nege-like viral infection in arthropod hosts and the evolution of two related plant virus families (<i>Virgaviridae</i> and <i>Kitaviridae</i>). Our results showed the infection of nege-like viruses for over 60 My during the arthropod evolution. ENVEs highly homologous to viral sequences in <i>Virgaviridae</i> and <i>Kitaviridae</i> were present in a wide range of arthropod genomes but were absent in plant genomes, indicating that plant viruses in these two families possibly evolved from the nege-like virus ancestor through cross-species horizontal virus transmission. Our findings provide a new perspective on the virus-host coevolution and the origins of plant viruses.