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Bacteriophages Of The Urinary Microbiome, Taylor Miller-Ensminger, Andrea Garretto, Jonathon Brenner, Krystal Thomas-White, Adriano Zambom, Alan J. Wolfe, Catherine Putonti

Bioinformatics Faculty Publications

Bacterial viruses (bacteriophages) play a significant role in microbial community dynamics. Within the human gastrointestinal tract, for instance, associations amongst bacteriophages (phages), microbiota stability, and human health have been discovered. In contrast to the gastrointestinal tract, the phages associated with the urinary microbiota are largely unknown. Preliminary metagenomic surveys of the urinary virome indicate a rich diversity of novel lytic phage sequences, at an abundance far outnumbering eukaryotic viruses. These surveys, however, exclude the lysogenic phages residing within the bacteria of the bladder. To characterize this phage population, we examined 181 genomes representative of the phylogenetic diversity of bacterial species …