Katelyn McNair

TL;DR: The discovery of a previously unidentified bacteriophage present in the majority of published human faecal metagenomes, which is referred to as crAssphage and predicted to have a Bacteroides host for this phage, consistent with Bactseroides-related protein homologues and a unique carbohydrate-binding domain encoded in the phage genome.

TL;DR: The Piggyback-the-Winner model wherein temperate dynamics become increasingly important in ecosystems with high microbial densities is proposed; thus ‘more microbes, fewer viruses’ is proposed.

TL;DR: Analysis of 820 phages with annotated hosts shows how current knowledge and insights about the interaction mechanisms and ecology of coevolving phages and bacteria can be exploited to predict phage–host relationships, with potential relevance for medical and industrial applications.

TL;DR: The Phage Classification Tool Set (PHACTS) utilizes a novel similarity algorithm and a supervised Random Forest classifier to make a prediction whether the lifestyle of a phage, described by its proteome, is virulent or temperate.

TL;DR: It is concluded that crAssphage is a benign cosmopolitan virus that may have coevolved with the human lineage and is an integral part of the normal human gut virome.