The 2 Felixviridae phages
a NEW proposed family of phages
RothC
Subfamily: Maevirinae
Genus: Nakavirus
Species: Nakavirus sapi
RothD
Subfamily: Maevirinae
Genus: Nakavirus
Species: Nakavirus sapi
About Felixviridae
RothC and RothD were isolated against gut-associated ST-type ST323 (K. pneumoniae).
These are both temperate phages that were unable to be classified into existing phage taxa, we therefore went on a journey to classify them according to ICTV guidelines.
Given their predicted association to gut-related strains, we wanted to see if we could identify any relatives in the Gut Phage Database.
We found they clustered with 132 metagenomic viral assemblies from the GPD.
We then wanted to compared how this whole cluster compared to the dsDNA database of VipTree.
On this tree on the left you can see the cluster GPD phages in red with some dsDNA phages from the VipTree db. They all stem from a monophyletic clade from a long distance, suggestive of a new order. We suggest the name Felixvirales for this new order.
Phages RothC and RothD share a clade with other phages (blue box, 23 memebers). Intergenomic similarity distances (below), suggest this forms a family within this order, we proposed the name Felixviridae for it.
Felixviridae has a distinct core genome
The 23 members forming the Felixviridae family, have a core genome of high conservation.
Most of the genes within this core are structural genes.
This taxonmic proposal was submitted to the ICTV on June 2024.
Felixviridae phages are found to be associated with the human gut.
The findings above suggest Felixvirales exist in the human gut, we therefore explored their relative abundance and found they were present in 100% of the 117 human gut metagenomes studied!
vContact2 created network with high-quality phages. You can see and interact with the network here.
