Muthuirulandi Sethuvel Dhiviya Prabaa, Subramanian Nithya, Pragasam Agila Kumari, Inbanathan Francis Yesurajan, Gupta Prashant, Johnson Jaichand, Sharma Naresh Chand, Hemvani Nanda, Veeraraghavan Balaji, Anandan Shalini, Sangal Lucky
Department of Clinical Microbiology, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India.
Department of Paediatrics, Christian Medical College, Vellore, India.
Indian J Med Microbiol. 2019 Jul-Sep;37(3):423-425. doi: 10.4103/ijmm.IJMM_19_469.
Diphtheria is a dreadful disease caused by Corynebacterium diphtheriae. Lysogenised bacteriophages carrying toxin gene in C. diphtheriae can make the strain toxigenic. However, such phage disseminates the toxin genes to other strains when it undergoes lytic phase. As little is known about the phage diversity in C. diphtheriae in India, the present study was undertaken to investigate the prophages integrated into the genome of 29 clinical isolates of C. diphtheriae using whole-genome shotgun sequencing. Amongst these isolates, 27 were toxigenic, while 2 were non-toxigenic strains. Of the 27 toxigenic strains, all harbored known phages carrying toxin gene and two other phages with unknown function. However, the two non-toxin strains did not harbour any of the phages in the genome. It is imperative to devise prevention strategies that hinder the dissemination of toxin by prophages, as it may increase the complications of diphtheria post-immunisation.
白喉是由白喉棒状杆菌引起的一种可怕疾病。携带毒素基因的溶原性噬菌体可使白喉棒状杆菌菌株产生毒素。然而，当这种噬菌体进入裂解期时，它会将毒素基因传播给其他菌株。由于对印度白喉棒状杆菌中的噬菌体多样性了解甚少，因此开展了本研究，采用全基因组鸟枪法测序来研究整合到29株白喉棒状杆菌临床分离株基因组中的原噬菌体。在这些分离株中，27株产毒素，2株不产毒素。在27株产毒素菌株中，所有菌株都含有携带毒素基因的已知噬菌体以及另外两种功能未知的噬菌体。然而，两株不产毒素的菌株基因组中未携带任何噬菌体。必须制定预防策略来阻止原噬菌体传播毒素，因为这可能会增加白喉免疫后的并发症。
