Flexible genes establish widespread bacteriophage pan-genomes in cryoconite hole ecosystems

Bacteriophages and their hosts are involved in a constant evolutionary arms race that should lead to divergence between phage genes over time. Here, the authors recruit metagenomic reads to virus reference genomes and genome fragments in samples from cryoconite holes and show that phages with near-i...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Christopher M. Bellas, Declan C. Schroeder, Arwyn Edwards, Gary Barker, Alexandre M. Anesio
Format: article
Language:EN
Published: Nature Portfolio 2020
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Online Access:https://doaj.org/article/87e483e9dc33413790e4656412d76b4c
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Summary:Bacteriophages and their hosts are involved in a constant evolutionary arms race that should lead to divergence between phage genes over time. Here, the authors recruit metagenomic reads to virus reference genomes and genome fragments in samples from cryoconite holes and show that phages with near-identical core genomes maintain diversity by possession of numerous flexible gene modules, where homologous genes present in the pan-genome interchange to create new phage variants.