Alsaadi Ahlam, Imam Mohammed, Alghamdi Abdulrahman A, Aljedani Safia S, Alsari Amal, Aljami Haya, Bosaeed Mohammad
King Abdullah International Medical Research Center, King Saud Bin Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
Department of Microbiology and Parasitology, Qunfudah College of Medicine, Umm Al-Qura University, Al-Qunfudah, Makkah, Saudi Arabia.
Front Cell Infect Microbiol. 2025 Apr 28;15:1563781. doi: 10.3389/fcimb.2025.1563781. eCollection 2025.
Prophages are bacteriophages that integrate their genomes into the bacterial chromosome. This research aimed to analyze and characterize prophages integrated into 44 strains isolated from tertiary hospitals in Saudi Arabia. A total of 97 intact prophages were identified among clinical strains, with 16 prophages found present in more than one strain simultaneously. All prophages were found to have lengths ranging from 7.7 kb to 74.1 kb, and their GC content was found to be between 49.91% and 64.9%. Our findings show that prophages are present in the majority of the isolated strains (41 out of 44). Additionally, several proteins related to viral defense (toxin/antitoxin modules and proteins against restriction-modification enzymes) were identified, supporting the idea that prophages influence bacterial pathogenesis and anti-phage defenses.
原噬菌体是将其基因组整合到细菌染色体中的噬菌体。本研究旨在分析和表征整合到从沙特阿拉伯三级医院分离出的44株菌株中的原噬菌体。在临床菌株中共鉴定出97个完整的原噬菌体，其中16个原噬菌体同时存在于多个菌株中。发现所有原噬菌体的长度在7.7 kb至74.1 kb之间，其GC含量在49.91%至64.9%之间。我们的研究结果表明，大多数分离菌株（44株中的41株）中存在原噬菌体。此外，还鉴定出了几种与病毒防御相关的蛋白质（毒素/抗毒素模块和抗限制修饰酶的蛋白质），支持了原噬菌体影响细菌发病机制和抗噬菌体防御的观点。
