Virus-host interactions predictor (VHIP): Machine learning approach to resolve microbial virus-host interaction networks.

Viruses of microbes are ubiquitous biological entities that reprogram their hosts' metabolisms during infection in order to produce viral progeny, impacting the ecology and evolution of microbiomes with broad implications for human and environmental health. Advances in genome sequencing have led to the discovery of millions of novel viruses and an appreciation for the great diversity of viruses on Earth. Yet, with knowledge of only "who is there?" we fall short in our ability to infer the impacts of viruses on microbes at population, community, and ecosystem-scales.

Benchmarking informatics approaches for virus discovery: caution is needed when combining identification methods.

Unlabelled: Understanding the ecological impacts of viruses on natural and engineered ecosystems relies on the accurate identification of viral sequences from community sequencing data. To maximize viral recovery from metagenomes, researchers frequently combine viral identification tools. However, the effectiveness of this strategy is unknown.

Phage-specific metabolic reprogramming of virocells.

Ocean viruses are abundant and infect 20-40% of surface microbes. Infected cells, termed virocells, are thus a predominant microbial state. Yet, virocells and their ecosystem impacts are understudied, thus precluding their incorporation into ecosystem models.