ArticleNature microbiology2026
Persistent virulent phages exist across bacterial isolates.
Article in Nature microbiology, 2026. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
8 citing papers in PubMed.
- A genomic catalog of the mouse gut virome reveals features associated with ageing.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Temperature-modulated persistent dsRNA phage infection selectively excludes superinfection and promotes generation of new viral variants.Microbiology spectrum · 2026Article
- The Unified Human Virome Database: A toolkit for expanded human virome analysis.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2026Article
- Large-scale analysis of bacterial genomes reveals thousands of lytic phages.Nature microbiology · 2026Article
- Synthetic and Functional Engineering of Bacteriophages: Approaches for Tailored Bactericidal, Diagnostic, and Delivery Platforms.Molecules (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- The extended mobility of plasmids.Nucleic acids research · 2025Review
- Re-evaluating what makes a phage unsuitable for therapy.npj antimicrobials and resistance · 2025Review
- Episomal virus maintenance enables bacterial population recovery from infection and promotes virus-bacterial coexistence.The ISME journal · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
10 authors.
Funding
Abstract
Virulent phages, characterized by an obligatory lytic cycle resulting in the death of their bacterial hosts, are assumed to lack the ability to persist within bacterial colonies. Consequently, when bacterial isolates are sequenced, the resulting assemblies are not expected to contain virulent phage genomes. Here we test this assumption at scale by analysing over 267,000 publicly available Escherichia assemblies. Surprisingly, we identified 373 virulent phage genomes within these assemblies. Such viral genomes are associated with specific phage taxa and especially with very large (jumbo) phages such as the phage nucleus-forming family Chimalliviridae. Multiple lines of evidence from culture experiments and bioinformatic analyses suggest that these virulent phage genomes arise from persistent infections without substantial host mortality. We also identified 285 related phage genomes in bacterial taxa beyond Escherichia, highlighting the frequency of as-yet-uncharacterized persistent phages. Our findings challenge the traditional virulent-temperate dichotomy and point to the prevalence of non-canonical phage lifestyles.
Indexed as
Identifiers
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.