Clades of huge phages from across Earth’s ecosystems

• Published in: Nature (London) Vol. 578; no. 7795; pp. 425 - 431
• Main Authors: Al-Shayeb, Basem, Sachdeva, Rohan, Chen, Lin-Xing, Ward, Fred, Munk, Patrick, Devoto, Audra, Castelle, Cindy J., Olm, Matthew R., Bouma-Gregson, Keith, Amano, Yuki, He, Christine, Méheust, Raphaël, Brooks, Brandon, Thomas, Alex, Lavy, Adi, Matheus-Carnevali, Paula, Sun, Christine, Goltsman, Daniela S. A., Borton, Mikayla A., Sharrar, Allison, Jaffe, Alexander L., Nelson, Tara C., Kantor, Rose, Keren, Ray, Lane, Katherine R., Farag, Ibrahim F., Lei, Shufei, Finstad, Kari, Amundson, Ronald, Anantharaman, Karthik, Zhou, Jinglie, Probst, Alexander J., Power, Mary E., Tringe, Susannah G., Li, Wen-Jun, Wrighton, Kelly, Harrison, Sue, Morowitz, Michael, Relman, David A., Doudna, Jennifer A., Lehours, Anne-Catherine, Warren, Lesley, Cate, Jamie H. D., Santini, Joanne M., Banfield, Jillian F.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London Nature Publishing Group UK 20.02.2020; Nature Publishing Group
• Subjects: 45; 45/23; 631/326/1321; 631/326/171; 631/326/2565/2142; Amino Acyl-tRNA Synthetases - genetics; Analysis; Animals; Bacteria; Bacteria - genetics; Bacteria - virology; Bacteriophages; Bacteriophages - classification; Bacteriophages - genetics; Bacteriophages - isolation & purification; Bacteriophages - metabolism; BASIC BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES; Biodiversity; Biosynthesis; Built environment; CRISPR; CRISPR-Cas Systems - genetics; Deoxyribonucleic acid; DNA; Earth, Planet; Ecosystem; Ecosystems; Elongation; Evolution, Molecular; Gene Expression Regulation, Bacterial; Gene Expression Regulation, Viral; Genes; Genetic aspects; Genetic diversity; Genome, Viral - genetics; Genomes; Host range; Host Specificity; Humanities and Social Sciences; Humans; Lake sediments; Lakes; Lakes - virology; Microbiomes; Molecular Sequence Annotation; multidisciplinary; Natural history; Nucleotide sequence; Oceans; Oceans and Seas; Phages; Phylogeny; Plasmids; Prophages - genetics; Protein Biosynthesis; Proteins; Ribosomal proteins; Ribosomal Proteins - genetics; RNA, Transfer - genetics; Science; Science (multidisciplinary); Seawater - virology; Sediments; Soil Microbiology; Taxonomy; Transcription factors; Transcription, Genetic; Translation; Translation elongation; Translation initiation; tRNA; tRNA Ala; Urban environments; United States

Bacteriophages typically have small genomes 1 and depend on their bacterial hosts for replication 2 . Here we sequenced DNA from diverse ecosystems and found hundreds of phage genomes with lengths of more than 200 kilobases (kb), including a genome of 735 kb, which is—to our knowledge—the largest ph...