TY - JOUR
T1 - Global Distribution of Nearly Identical Phage-encoded DNA Sequences
AU - Breitbart, Mya
AU - Miyake, Jon
AU - Rohwer, Forest
PY - 2004/1/1
Y1 - 2004/1/1
N2 - Phages, the most abundant biological entities on the planet, play important roles in biogeochemical cycling, horizontal gene transfer, and defining microbial community composition. However, very little is known about phage diversity or biogeography, and there has not yet been a systematic effort to compare the phages found in different ecosystems. Here, we report that T7-like Podophage DNA polymerase sequences occur in every major biome investigated, including marine, freshwater, sediment, terrestrial, extreme, and metazoan-associated. The majority of these sequences belong to a unique clade that is only distantly related to cultured isolates. Some identical T7-like phage-encoded DNA polymerase genes from this clade were >99% conserved at the nucleotide level in multiple different environments, suggesting that these phages are moving between biomes in recent evolutionary time and that the global genomic pool for T7-like phages may be smaller than previously hypothesized.
AB - Phages, the most abundant biological entities on the planet, play important roles in biogeochemical cycling, horizontal gene transfer, and defining microbial community composition. However, very little is known about phage diversity or biogeography, and there has not yet been a systematic effort to compare the phages found in different ecosystems. Here, we report that T7-like Podophage DNA polymerase sequences occur in every major biome investigated, including marine, freshwater, sediment, terrestrial, extreme, and metazoan-associated. The majority of these sequences belong to a unique clade that is only distantly related to cultured isolates. Some identical T7-like phage-encoded DNA polymerase genes from this clade were >99% conserved at the nucleotide level in multiple different environments, suggesting that these phages are moving between biomes in recent evolutionary time and that the global genomic pool for T7-like phages may be smaller than previously hypothesized.
KW - Phage
KW - DNA polymerase
KW - Distribution
KW - Ubiquitous sequence
KW - Environment
KW - T7-like Podophage
UR - https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/msc_facpub/794
UR - https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1574-6968.2004.tb09654.x
U2 - 10.1111/j.1574-6968.2004.tb09654.x
DO - 10.1111/j.1574-6968.2004.tb09654.x
M3 - Article
VL - 236
JO - FEMS Microbiology Letters
JF - FEMS Microbiology Letters
ER -