Nguyen Phuoc-Dung, Nakanishi Koki, Hosokawa Chihiro, Han Nguyen Song, Kitao Masao, Yoshimoto Masanao, Kamei Kaeko
Department of Functional Chemistry, Kyoto Institute of Technology, Kyoto, 606-8585, Japan.
Antimicrobial Technology Co., Ltd, Kyoto, 601-8145, Japan.
Arch Microbiol. 2025 Sep 11;207(10):261. doi: 10.1007/s00203-025-04451-8.
Cutibacterium acnes, formerly Propionibacterium acnes, is a Gram-positive bacterium commonly recognized as an important factor in acne vulgaris and infections associated with prosthetic medical devices. With the rise in antibiotic resistance, phage therapy has gained renewed attention as a promising alternative to antibiotics. In addition to a strict lytic cycle, some virulent phages may enter a pseudolysogenic state and exclude superinfections, thereby significantly limiting the applicability of these potential antimicrobial agents. However, the trade-off induced by phage infection of bacterial cells during this state and its molecular mechanism are yet to be confirmed, especially for C. acnes phages. In this study, a novel Cutibacterium acnes phage, KIT08, was isolated and characterized. It demonstrated rapid infectivity and moderately strong bacteriolysis. After infection of C. acnes NBRC 107,605, pseudolysogenic bacteria were collected and examined for physiological tradeoffs. The pseudolysogenic isolate exhibited slower growth and downregulation of the transcriptional levels of biofilm-producing genes, such as lipase 2 and hyaluronate lyase, leading to a decrease in biofilm formation. Additionally, a genomic study of phage KIT08 revealed that open reading frames 23 and 34 encode putative proteins homologous to repressor C and LTP proteins, which may play an important role in the induction of pseudolysogeny and superinfection exclusion in C. acnes.
痤疮丙酸杆菌，以前称为痤疮丙酸菌，是一种革兰氏阳性菌，通常被认为是寻常痤疮以及与医用假体装置相关感染的一个重要因素。随着抗生素耐药性的增加，噬菌体疗法作为一种有前景的抗生素替代方案重新受到关注。除了严格的裂解周期外，一些烈性噬菌体可能进入假溶原状态并排除超感染，从而显著限制了这些潜在抗菌剂的适用性。然而，在这种状态下细菌细胞受到噬菌体感染所引发的权衡及其分子机制尚未得到证实，尤其是对于痤疮丙酸杆菌噬菌体而言。在本研究中，分离并鉴定了一种新型的痤疮丙酸杆菌噬菌体KIT08。它表现出快速的感染性和中等强度的溶菌作用。在感染痤疮丙酸杆菌NBRC 107605后，收集假溶原性细菌并检测其生理权衡。该假溶原性分离株生长较慢，生物膜产生基因如脂肪酶2和透明质酸裂解酶的转录水平下调，导致生物膜形成减少。此外，对噬菌体KIT08的基因组研究表明，开放阅读框23和34编码与阻遏物C和LTP蛋白同源的假定蛋白，它们可能在痤疮丙酸杆菌假溶原性的诱导和超感染排除中起重要作用。
