Jakub Barylski

Abstract Viromics produces millions of viral genomes and fragments annually, overwhelming traditional sequence comparison methods. Here we introduce Vclust, an approach that determines average nucleotide identity by Lempel–Ziv parsing and clusters viral genomes with thresholds endorsed by authoritative viral genomics and taxonomy consortia. Vclust demonstrates superior accuracy and efficiency compared to existing tools, clustering millions of genomes in a few hours on a mid-range workstation.

Abstract Viromics produces millions of viral genomes and fragments annually, overwhelming traditional sequence comparison methods. We introduce Vclust, a novel approach that determines average nucleotide identity by Lempel-Ziv parsing and clusters viral genomes with thresholds endorsed by authoritative viral genomics and taxonomy consortia.

Abstract Bacteriophages are widely recognised as rapidly evolving biological entities. However, knowledge about ancient bacteriophages is limited. Here, we analyse DNA sequence datasets previously generated from ancient palaeofaeces and human gut-content samples, and identify an ancient phage genome nearly identical to present-day Mushuvirus mushu, a virus that infects gut commensal bacteria.