Sixteen mycobacteriophages were isolated by students at Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington IL using a soil enrichment technique and a Mycobacterium smegmatis host. Each student created and archived a high titer lysate of his or her mycobacteriophage, and of these sixteen, two were selected to be sent in for sequencing, Eidsmoe and Morrow. Morrow was found just outside the Morrow Plots at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2014, and was found to be one of 64 members of the A4 subcluster. Its 51,411 base pair genome is comparable to the average A4 genome of 51,395 base pairs. However, Morrow has 94 genes, which is eight more genes than the average A4 genome. Morrow was then annotated using BLASTp, Phamerator, Starterator, and DNA Master, and was found to be 98% identical to Abdiel, which was found in Missouri in 2011. The identification of the sixteen mycobacteriophages and the sequencing and annotation of two of them expands our knowledge, as well as the online database, where they are contributing to scientific research
