Fig. 1.

Long-term persistence of crAss-like phages in the gut microbiome and in vitro. a Persistence of ΦcrAss001 in the gut of C57BL/6NTac mice (n = 6) mice colonized with ΦcrAss001/B. intestinalis APC919/174 mixture at an MOI=1; the control group of mice received oral gavage of B. intestinalis only; b replication of ΦcrAss001 in an exponentially growing culture of B. intestinalis (OD600=0.3 at infection with an MOI=1) followed by four daily transfers of phage/host co-culture in fresh broth; bacterial and free phage counts were obtained by plating and plaque assays respectively; c VMR determined using shotgun metagenomic sequencing of total DNA in the same phage/host co-cultures as in b, with additional samples collected after 18 and 23 daily transfers. A lag between completed DNA replication in the first infection cycle (90 min, [b]) and release of phages progeny (120–180 min, [c]) is noticeable