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Abstract
Microbial communities play a key role in shaping many diverse ecosystems through their biogeochemical contributions. These communities comprise not only bacteria and archaea but also their viruses, whose reproduction profoundly affects host cell biology. While many bacterial species have been well characterized, the challenges of isolation and sequencing have hampered the study of environmental viruses such as bacteriophages. The model organism Azotobacter vinelandii is a common nitrogen-fixing soil bacterium. To our knowledge, no Azotobacter phages currently exist in culture. However, modern bioinformatic and database approaches can be used to identify the metagenomic sequences that may derive from bacteriophages that infect Azotobacter. We have developed a pipeline that scans metagenomic samples from the IMG JGI database to identify phage sequences whose abundance co-varies with Azotobacter vinelandii abundance. The viral sequences identified can be grouped into clusters, and the resulting clusters can then be analyzed for auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs). These candidate sequences may then be used to guide phage isolation strategies and predict phage ecological impact.
Symposium Date
Fall 12-1-2012
Keywords
bacteriophages, microbiology, bioinformatics
Disciplines
Biology
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Recommended Citation
Reddy, Anish and Bagby, Sarah, "Determination of Potential Azotobacter vinelandii Bacteriophage Gene Sequences: A Bioinformatics Approach" (2012). Intersections Fall 2020. 30.
https://commons.case.edu/intersections-fa20/30