Specific Caudoviricetes prophages are more common in colorectal cancer-associated Bacteroides fragilis (Communications Medicine)

Damgaard and colleagues report in Communications Medicine that Bacteroides fragilis isolates from colorectal cancer (CRC) patients are infected with specific Caudoviricetes prophages significantly more often than controls, a finding made by pangenome-wide association in an isolate collection and validated in a faecal metagenome cohort of 877 individuals, where CRC patients were about twice as likely to have detectable levels of these phages (OR = 2.05). They describe it as the first link between one of the most implicated CRC driver bacteria and phages, and suggest phages as potential CRC biomarkers.