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Updated: Jun 24, 2026

Phage Phenomics: Physiological Approaches to Characterize Novel Viral Proteins
Published on: June 11, 2015
Uncovering metabolic pathways relevant to phenotypic traits of microbial genomes
Gabi Kastenmüller1, Maria Elisabeth Schenk, Johann Gasteiger
1Institute of Bioinformatics and Systems Biology, Helmholtz Zentrum München, German Research Center for Environmental Health, Ingolstädter Landstrasse, Neuherberg, Germany. g.kastenmueller@helmholtz-muenchen.de
Abstract:
Identifying the biochemical basis of microbial phenotypes is a main objective of comparative genomics. Here we present a novel method using multivariate machine learning techniques for comparing automatically derived metabolic reconstructions of sequenced genomes on a large scale. Applying our method to 266 genomes directly led to testable hypotheses such as the link between the potential of microorganisms to cause periodontal disease and their ability to degrade histidine, a link also supported by clinical studies.
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