Predicting the capsid architecture of phages from metagenomic data.

ABSTRACT: Tailed phages are viruses that infect bacteria and are the most abundant biological entities on Earth. Their ecological, evolutionary, and biogeochemical roles in the planet stem from their genomic diversity. Known tailed phage genomes range from 10 to 735 kilobase pairs thanks to the size variability of the protective protein capsids that store them. However, the role of tailed phage capsids' diversity in ecosystems is unclear. A fundamental gap is the difficulty of associating genomic information with viral capsids in the environment. To address this problem, here, we introduce a computational approach to predict the capsid architecture (T-number) of tailed phages using the sequence of a single gene-the major capsid protein. This approach relies on an allometric model that relates the ge

SUBMITTER: Lee DY 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8814770 | biostudies-literature | 2022

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature