Schüler Miriam A, Daniel Rolf, Poehlein Anja
Genomic and Applied Microbiology and Göttingen Genomics Laboratory, Institute of Microbiology and Genetics, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.
Front Microbiol. 2024 Mar 21;15:1374708. doi: 10.3389/fmicb.2024.1374708. eCollection 2024.
The global pathogen is a well-studied organism, and researchers work on unraveling its fundamental virulence mechanisms and biology. Prophages have been demonstrated to influence toxin expression and contribute to the distribution of advantageous genes. All these underline the importance of prophages in virulence. Although several prophages were sequenced and characterized, investigations on the entire active virome of a strain are still missing. Phages were mainly isolated after mitomycin C-induction, which does not resemble a natural stressor for We examined active prophages from different strains after cultivation in the absence of mitomycin C by sequencing and characterization of particle-protected DNA. Phage particles were collected after standard cultivation, or after cultivation in the presence of the secondary bile salt deoxycholate (DCA). DCA is a natural stressor for and a potential prophage-inducing agent. We also investigated differences in prophage activity between clinical and non-clinical strains. Our experiments demonstrated that spontaneous prophage release is common in and that DCA presence induces prophages. Fourteen different, active phages were identified by this experimental procedure. We could not identify a definitive connection between clinical background and phage activity. However, one phage exhibited distinctively higher activity upon DCA induction in the clinical strain than in the corresponding non-clinical strain, although the phage is identical in both strains. We recorded that enveloped DNA mapped to genome regions with characteristics of mobile genetic elements other than prophages. This pointed to mechanisms of DNA mobility that are not well-studied in so far. We also detected phage-mediated lateral transduction of bacterial DNA, which is the first described case in . This study significantly contributes to our knowledge of prophage activity in and reveals novel aspects of (phage) biology.
这种全球病原体是一种经过充分研究的生物体，研究人员致力于阐明其基本的毒力机制和生物学特性。原噬菌体已被证明会影响毒素表达，并有助于优势基因的分布。所有这些都凸显了原噬菌体在毒力方面的重要性。尽管已对几种原噬菌体进行了测序和表征，但对一个菌株的整个活性病毒组的研究仍然缺失。噬菌体主要是在丝裂霉素C诱导后分离得到的，而这与该菌的自然应激源并不相似。我们通过对颗粒保护DNA进行测序和表征，研究了在无丝裂霉素C的情况下培养后的不同菌株中的活性原噬菌体。在标准培养后，或在存在次级胆汁盐脱氧胆酸盐（DCA）的情况下培养后收集噬菌体颗粒。DCA是该菌的自然应激源和潜在的原噬菌体诱导剂。我们还研究了临床菌株和非临床菌株之间原噬菌体活性的差异。我们的实验表明，自发原噬菌体释放在该菌中很常见，并且DCA的存在会诱导原噬菌体。通过该实验程序鉴定出了14种不同的活性噬菌体。我们无法确定临床背景与噬菌体活性之间的明确联系。然而，有一种噬菌体在临床菌株中经DCA诱导后的活性明显高于相应的非临床菌株，尽管这两种菌株中的噬菌体是相同的。我们记录到，包膜DNA映射到具有除原噬菌体之外的可移动遗传元件特征的基因组区域。这指出了在该菌中迄今尚未得到充分研究的DNA移动机制。我们还检测到了噬菌体介导的细菌DNA横向转导，这是在该菌中首次描述的案例。这项研究对我们了解该菌中原噬菌体活性有重大贡献，并揭示了该菌（噬菌体）生物学的新方面。
