Bacillus phage sequencing project. unclassified bacterial viruses

Bacteriophages (phages), the natural predators of bacteria, are the most abundant and diverse living entities on the earth. Some phages confer new phenotypes on their host by integrating their genome into the host chromosome. And therefore they have potential uses in biotechnology such as antibiotic alternatives in medical and biocontrol agents in agriculture. This project plans to sequence the genomes of phages in NBRC culture collection. The genome information is expected to give new insights into the use of phages for development of genetic, biotechnological, and clinical tools. The sequence data will be released to the society through the NBRC web site (http://www.bio.nite.go.jp/ngac/e/project_wgs-e.html) and DDBJ/EMBL/GenBank databases.