Adams David W, Jaskólska Milena, Lemopoulos Alexandre, Stutzmann Sandrine, Righi Laurie, Bader Loriane, Blokesch Melanie
Laboratory of Molecular Microbiology, Global Health Institute, School of Life Sciences, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Lausanne, Switzerland.
Nat Microbiol. 2025 May 22. doi: 10.1038/s41564-025-02004-9.
Our understanding of the factors underlying the evolutionary success of different lineages of pandemic Vibrio cholerae remains incomplete. The West African-South American (WASA) lineage of V. cholerae, responsible for the 1991-2001 Latin American cholera epidemic, is defined by two unique genetic signatures. Here we show that these signatures encode multiple distinct anti-phage defence systems. Firstly, the WASA-1 prophage encodes an abortive-infection system, WonAB, that renders the lineage resistant to the major predatory vibriophage ICP1, which, alongside other phages, is thought to restrict cholera epidemics. Secondly, a unique set of genes on the Vibrio seventh pandemic island II encodes an unusual modification-dependent restriction system targeting phages with modified genomes, and a previously undescribed member of the Shedu defence family that defends against vibriophage X29. We propose that these anti-phage defence systems likely contributed to the success of a major epidemic lineage of the ongoing seventh cholera pandemic.
我们对引发霍乱大流行的不同谱系弧菌进化成功背后因素的理解仍不完整。导致1991 - 2001年拉丁美洲霍乱疫情的霍乱弧菌西非 - 南美（WASA）谱系，由两个独特的基因特征所定义。在此我们表明，这些特征编码了多种不同的抗噬菌体防御系统。首先，WASA - 1前噬菌体编码一种流产感染系统WonAB，该系统使该谱系对主要的捕食性弧菌噬菌体ICP1具有抗性，而ICP1与其他噬菌体一起被认为可限制霍乱流行。其次，霍乱弧菌第七次大流行岛II上一组独特的基因编码一种针对具有修饰基因组噬菌体的异常修饰依赖性限制系统，以及一个此前未描述的防御噬菌体X29的Shedu防御家族成员。我们认为，这些抗噬菌体防御系统可能促成了当前第七次霍乱大流行中一个主要流行谱系的成功。
