Center for Biological Data Science, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA 23284, USA.
Department of Biological Sciences, University of Maryland Baltimore County, Baltimore, MD 21250, USA.
Viruses. 2023 Jan 18;15(2):276. doi: 10.3390/v15020276.
Bacteriophage genomes represent an enormous level of genetic diversity and provide considerable potential to acquire new insights about viral genome evolution. In this study, the genome sequences of sixteen -infecting bacteriophages were explored through comparative genomics approaches to reveal shared and unique characteristics. These bacteriophages are in the family with small (18,548-27,206 bp) double-stranded DNA genomes encoding 25-46 predicted open reading frames. We observe extensive nucleotide and amino acid sequence divergence among a set of core-function genes that present clear synteny. We identify two examples of sequence directed recombination within essential genes, as well as explore the expansion of gene content in these genomes through the introduction of novel open reading frames. Together, these findings highlight the complex evolutionary relationships of phage genomes that include old, common origins as well as new components introduced through mosaicism.
噬菌体基因组代表了巨大的遗传多样性水平，为深入了解病毒基因组进化提供了巨大的潜力。在这项研究中，通过比较基因组学方法探索了 16 种感染性噬菌体的基因组序列，以揭示其共同和独特的特征。这些噬菌体属于 科，具有小的（18548-27206bp）双链 DNA 基因组，编码 25-46 个预测的开放阅读框。我们观察到一组核心功能基因之间存在广泛的核苷酸和氨基酸序列差异，但它们仍呈现明显的同线性。我们鉴定了两个在必需基因中发生序列导向重组的例子，并通过引入新的开放阅读框来探索这些基因组中基因含量的扩展。总之，这些发现突出了噬菌体基因组的复杂进化关系，包括古老的、共同的起源以及通过镶嵌现象引入的新成分。
