PhagesDB
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The Actinobacteriophage database, more commonly known as PhagesDB, is a bioinformatics website that collects and shares information related to the discovery, characterization, and genomics of viruses that typically infect Actinobacteria.[1] At the start of 2026, the database contained information on more than 30,000 bacteriophages (phages), as well as over 5,000 fully sequenced phages.[2]
- Pittsburgh Bacteriophage Institute at the University of Pittsburgh
| Founded | April 2010 |
|---|---|
| Location |
|
| Members | 20,366 (as of 3/15/2022) |
Key people | Dr. Graham Hatfull (HHMI Professor), Dan Russell (Webmaster), Debbie Jacobs-Sera (Phagehunting Program Coordinator), Dr. Welkin H. Pope (Research Assistant Professor), and Dr. Viknesh Sivanathan (HHMI Program Officer) |
| Affiliations | SEA-PHAGES (Science Education Alliance-Phage Hunters Advancing Genomics and Evolutionary Science) |
| Website | phagesdb |
Design and features
PhagesDB has individual entries for each different virus in the database, along with a separate GeneMark page,[3] as well as amino-acid information about phage genomes.[4][5] The table below indicates the different types (by bacterial host genus) and numbers of phages sequenced:[2]
| Phage Types Sequenced | Number Sequenced |
|---|---|
| Actinoplanes | 1 |
| Arthrobacter | 674 |
| Brevibacterium | 3 |
| Corynebacterium | 33 |
| Curtobacterium | 54 |
| Gordonia | 873 |
| Microbacterium | 780 |
| Mycobacterium | 2702 |
| Propionibacterium | 57 |
| Rhodococcus | 75 |
| Rothia | 1 |
| Streptomyces | 420 |
| Tetrasphaera | 1 |
| Tsukamurella | 2 |
Access and rights to data
Information published in this database can be freely viewed by anyone, and an Application Programming Interface (API) is available.[6] PhagesDB keeps some unpublished data, including newly performed genomic sequences.[7]