Danica T. Schmidtke

Mar 20, 2024 | biorxiv.org | Danica T. Schmidtke |Angela Hickey |Ivan Liachko |Gavin Sherlock

AbstractThe prototypic crAssphage (Carjivirus communis) is one of the most abundant, prevalent, and persistent gut bacteriophages, yet it remains uncultured and its lifestyle uncharacterized. For the last decade, crAssphage has escaped plaque-dependent culturing efforts, leading us to investigate alternative lifestyles that might explain its widespread success. Through genomic analyses and culturing, we find that crAssphage uses a phage-plasmid lifestyle to persist extrachromosomally.