| Detailed Information for Phage Vortrix |
| Discovery Information |
| Isolation Host | Mycobacterium smegmatis mc²155 |
| Found By | CH Dunn, NJ Bingham, and FN Baliraine |
| Year Found | 2025 |
| Location Found | Longview, TX United States |
| Finding Institution | LeTourneau University |
| Program | Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science |
| From enriched soil sample? | Yes |
| Isolation Temperature | 37°C |
| GPS Coordinates | 32.46458 N, 94.7272 W Map |
| Discovery Notes | The soil sample was collected from a from a patch of grass along the walkway behind the Glaske Center for Engineering, Science, and Technology building at LeTourneau University at approximately 12:00 p.m. CST on September 11, 2025. The weather was bright and sunny with an ambient temperature of 32°C. The soil was lumpy and collected from a hole dug approximately 4 cm deep and 3 cm wide. |
| Naming Notes | The first part of the name of our phage is "Vor" comes from the Latin word "vorare" meaning "to devour." The second half of the name stems from the difficulty we experienced while trying to create webbed plates for this phage. Moreover, there were mulptiple unsuccessful attempts at phage isolation from other soil samples before this one. Therefore, "trix" represent how isolating our phage was tricky process. |
| Sequencing Information |
| Sequencing Complete? | Yes |
| Date Sequencing Completed | Jan 6, 2026 |
| Sequencing Facility | Pittsburgh Bacteriophage Institute |
| Shotgun Sequencing Method | Illumina |
| Sequencer Used | Illumina NextSeq 1000 |
| Read Type | Single-end reads |
| Read Length | 100 bp |
| Approximate Shotgun Coverage | 436 |
| Genome length (bp) | 160282 |
| Character of genome ends | Circularly Permuted |
| GC Content | 64.1% |
| Fasta file available? | Yes: Download fasta file |
| Characterization |
| Cluster | C |
| Subcluster | C1 |
| Cluster Life Cycle | Lytic |
| Other Cluster Members |
|
| Annotating Institution | LeTourneau University |
| Annotation Status | Being Annotated (Expected completion by 5/1/2026) |
| Plaque Notes | Vortrix produced small, turbid, bulls-eye plaques that were approximately 0.655 mm in diameter on average (range 0.35-1 mm; n = 10). |
| Number of Genes | 255 |
| Number of tRNAs | 32 |
| Number of tmRNAs | 1 |
| Has been Phamerated? | Yes |
| Gene List |
|
| Publication Info |
| Uploaded to GenBank? | No |
| GenBank Accession | None yet |
| Refseq Number | None yet |
| Archiving Info |
| Archiving status |
Not in Pitt Archives |
| SEA Lysate Titer |
8.0 x 10^9 PFU/mL |