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Updated: Mar 25, 2026

Phage Phenomics: Physiological Approaches to Characterize Novel Viral Proteins
Published on: June 11, 2015
Adding pieces to the puzzle: New insights into bacteriophage diversity from integrated research-education programs
Welkin H Pope1, Graham F Hatfull1
1Department of Biological Sciences; University of Pittsburgh ; Pittsburgh, PA USA.
Abstract:
Bacteriophages are the dark matter of the biological universe: the population is vast and replete with novel genes whose function is unknown. The genomic insights such as the mosaic architecture gleaned from perhaps 2,000 currently sequenced bacteriophage genomes is far from representative of the total number phage particles in the biosphere - about 10ˆ31. The recent comparative analysis of 627 mycobacteriophages isolated on Mycobacterium smegmatis mc2 155 is the most extensive examination yet in pursuit of this question.
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