SpacePHARER: sensitive identification of phages from CRISPR spacers in prokaryotic hosts

SpacePHARER (CRISPR Spacer Phage-Host Pair Finder) is a sensitive and fast tool for de novo prediction of phage-host relationships via identifying phage genomes that match CRISPR spacers in genomic or metagenomic data. SpacePHARER gains sensitivity by comparing spacers and phages at the protein level, optimizing its scores for matching very short sequences, and combining evidence from multiple matches, while controlling for false positives. We demonstrate SpacePHARER by searching a comprehensive spacer list against all complete phage genomes.

Automated summary

SpacePHARER is a sensitive and fast tool for predicting phage-host relationships by comparing spacers and phages at the protein level, optimizing scores for matching short sequences, and combining evidence from multiple matches.