title: A Taxonomic Review of Clostridium difficile Phages and Proposal of a Novel Genus, "Phimmp04likevirus".
abstract: Currently, only three phages that infect the medically important bacterium Clostridium difficile have been discussed by the International Committee of Viral Taxonomy (ICTV). They are all myoviruses, and have been assigned to the genus "phicd119likevirus". An additional nine phages have since been described in the literature with their genome data available. The Phicd119likevirus is named after the type species: the myovirus ΦCD119 which was the first C. difficile phage to be sequenced. The two additional myoviruses, ϕCD27 and φC2, also fall into this genus based on the similarity of their genome and morphological characteristics. The other nine phages have not been assigned to this genus, and four of them do not fit the criteria for the current taxonomic grouping. We have applied protein clustering analysis to determine their phylogenetic relationships. From these results we propose an additional myoviridae genus, that we term "phiMMP04likevirus".
authors.affiliation: Department of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, University of Leicester, Leicestershire LE1 9HN, UK. khargreaves@email.arizona.edu.|Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Arizona, AZ 85721, USA. khargreaves@email.arizona.edu.
authors.forename: Katherine R
authors.initials: KR
authors.lastname: Hargreaves
authors.affiliation: Department of Infection, Immunity and Inflammation, University of Leicester, Leicestershire LE1 9HN, UK. mrjc1@le.ac.uk.
authors.forename: Martha R J
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Clokie
mesh_terms: D001435:Bacteriophages / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000648:ultrastructure; D016360:Clostridioides difficile / Q000821:virology*; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D019295:Computational Biology; D017900:Myoviridae / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics / Q000648:ultrastructure; D010802:Phylogeny; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014764:Viral Proteins / Q000235:genetics
chemical_list: D014764:Viral Proteins
keywords: Clostridium difficile; Myoviridae; Siphoviridae; bacteriophage; bacteriophage phylogeny; protein clustering; small myovirus; taxonomy