Selective enrichment of giant viruses, jumbo phages and tiny bacteria from Harvard Forest soils

Large viruses and tiny bacteria (the size of viruses) are understudied and poorly represented in soil metagenomes. In this experiment soil was collected from Barre Woods at the Harvard Forest Long Term Ecological Research Site. Sequential filtration was used to enrich for bacteria and virus particles in the 0.2 to 1.2 um and 1.2 to 5.0um size ranges. DNA was extracted from cells and particles on the 0.2 and 1.2 um filters. Six metagenomes were assembled and analyzed for novel bacteria and viruses.