Family: Inoviridae

Genus: Fibrovirus

Distinguishing features

Virions of Vibrio phage fs1 and Vibrio phage VGJ are filamentous particles about 7 nm wide and 1,000−1,200 nm long. Phages in the genus Fibrovirus possess genomes of 6.3−7.5 kb (G+C 43%) which encode 11−15 proteins and have been isolated from Vibrio cholera O139 strains. For Vibrio phage VGJ and Vibrio phage VEJ, mannose-sensitive hemagglutinin A (MSHA) is a receptor (type IV pilus). Phages in the genus Fibrovirus are able to integrate into the host genome by means of the bacterial XerC/D recombinase (Kar et al., 1996, Honma et al., 1997, Ehara et al., 1997, Campos et al., 2003, Campos et al., 2010, Nguyen et al., 2012, Das 2014). 

Virion

See discussion under family description. 

Genome organisation and replication

See discussion under family description. 

Biology

Members of the genus infect bacteria from the genus Vibrio. Several phages, i.e. Vibrio phage ND1-fs1, Vibrio phage VSK, Vibrio phage VSKK and Vibrio phage VEJ are considered as variants of Vibrio phage fs1 because of their close similarity in genome sequence. 

Species demarcation criteria

Members of different species are >5% different in the DNA sequence of their genomes as assessed using the BLASTn algorithm.