name:   Actinobacteriophage_785
version:    1
date:   2016-07-18
owner:
    name:   Graham Hatfull
    email:  gfh@pitt.edu
    url:    https://www.biology.pitt.edu/person/graham-hatfull
description: >
    This database contains the 785 manually annotated Actinobacteriophages analyzed
    in Mavrich & Hatfull 2017.
publications:
    1:
        doi:    10.1038/nmicrobiol.2017.112
        pmid:   28692019
        title:  >
            Bacteriophage evolution differs by host, lifestyle, and genome
        authors:    >
            Travis N Mavrich and Graham F Hatfull
        abstract:   >
            Bacteriophages play key roles in microbial evolution, marine nutrient cycling,
            and human disease. Phages are genetically diverse and their genome architectures are
            characteristically mosaic, driven by horizontal gene transfer (HGT) with other phages
            and host genomes. As a consequence, phage evolution is complex and their genomes are
            composed of genes with distinct and varied evolutionary histories. However, there are
            conflicting perspectives on the roles of mosaicism, and the extent to which it
            generates a spectrum of genome diversity or genetically discrete populations. Here,
            we show that bacteriophages evolve within two general evolutionary modes that differ
            in the extent of HGT by an order of magnitude. Temperate phages distribute into high
            and low gene flux modes, whereas lytic phages share only the lower gene flux mode. The
            evolutionary modes are also a function of the bacterial host, and different proportions
            of temperate and lytic phages are distributed in either mode depending on the host
            phylum. Groups of genetically-related phages fall into either the high or low gene flux
            modes, suggesting there are genetic as well as ecological drivers of HGT rates.
            Consequently, genome mosaicisim varies depending on the host, lifestyle, and genetic
            constitution of phages.
resources: ~