A global virome of methanogenic archaea highlights novel diversity and adaptations to the gut environment. viruses of methanogenic archaea from anoxic environments

Viruses have a major impact on microbial communities. Methanogenic archaea play key environmental and economical roles, being the main producers of methane - a potent greenhouse gas and an energy source. They are widespread in diverse anoxic artificial and natural environments, including animal gut microbiomes. However, their virome remains vastly unknown. Here, we carried out a global investigation of viruses associated with all known diversity of methanogens using a newly assembled CRISPR database consisting of 156,000 spacers, the most extensive collection to date. We report 291 high-quality (pro)viral and 205 virus-like (plasmid) sequences, representing 95 families, assigned to hosts belonging to ten main orders of methanogenic archaea.