?CrAss001 represents the most abundant bacteriophage family in the human gut and infects Bacteroides intestinalis
Résumé
CrAssphages are an extensive and ubiquitous family of tailedbacteriophages, predicted to infect bacteria of the order Bacteroidales.Despite being found in 50% of individuals and representing up to 90% ofhuman gut viromes, members of this viral family have never been isolatedin culture and remain understudied. Here, we report the isolation of aCrAssphage (?CrAss001) from human faecal material. This bacteriophageinfects the human gut symbiont Bacteroides intestinalis, confirmingprevious in silico predictions of the likely host. DNA sequencingdemonstrates that the bacteriophage genome is circular, 102 kb in size,and has unusual structural traits. In addition, electron microscopyconfirms that ?crAss001 has a podovirus-like morphology. Despite theabsence of obvious lysogeny genes, ?crAss001 replicates in a way thatdoes not disrupt proliferation of the host bacterium, and is able tomaintain itself in continuous host culture during several weeks.