Subfamily: Bastillevirinae

Genus: Matervirus

Distinguishing features

The genome of Bacillus phage Mater, the exemplar isolate of Matervirus mater, the only species in the genus, is 164 302 bp with 222 unique predicted protein coding sequences (19 of these genes are repeated in the 9 228 bp regions of terminal redundancy) and 6 tRNAs (Lancaster et al., 2015). Members of the genus infect Priestia megaterium (formerly known as Bacillus megaterium).

Species demarcation criteria

There is only one species in the genus. New members of this species will be assigned based on their being more than 95% identical in genome nucleotide sequence, including the terminal repeat region. Phages with genomes that differ by more than 5% will be assigned to different species.