Adsorption Sequencing as a Rapid Method to Link Environmental Bacteriophages to Hosts

An important viromics challenge is associating bacteriophages to hosts. To address this, we developed adsorption sequencing (AdsorpSeq), a readily implementable method to measure phages that are preferentially adsorbed to specific host cell envelopes. AdsorpSeq thus captures the key initial infection cycle step. Phages are added to cell...

Evolution of BACON Domain Tandem Repeats in crAssphage and Novel Gut Bacteriophage Lineages

The human gut contains an expanse of largely unstudied bacteriophages. Among the most common are crAss-like phages, which were predicted to infect Bacteriodetes hosts. CrAssphage, the first crAss-like phage to be discovered, contains a protein encoding a Bacteroides-associated carbohydrate-binding often N-terminal (BACON) domain tandem repeat...