A horizontally acquired filamentous phage contributes to the pathogenicity of the plague bacillus

Derbise, Anne; Chenal-Francisque, Viviane; Pouillot, Flavie; Fayolle, Corinne; Prévost, Marie‐Christine; Médigue, Claudine; Hinnebusch, B. Joseph; Carniel, Élisabeth

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2958.2006.05570.x

Cited by 83 publications

(81 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…S1). Most of the accessory genome is variable in its parental species, Y. pseudotuberculosis, and the only genomic island which might have been acquired after the earliest nodes in the genealogy is a filamentous bacteriophage (46). In contrast, the polymorphic nucleotides in the core genome provide an unambiguous record of a clonal genealogy, allowing analyses of changes that might be associated with historical epidemics and pandemics.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical variations in mutation rate in an epidemic pathogen, Yersinia pestis

Cui

Yan

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

355

442

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The genetic diversity of Yersinia pestis, the etiologic agent of plague, is extremely limited because of its recent origin coupled with a slow clock rate. Here we identified 2,326 SNPs from 133 genomes of Y. pestis strains that were isolated in China and elsewhere. These SNPs define the genealogy of Y. pestis since its most recent common ancestor. All but 28 of these SNPs represented mutations that happened only once within the genealogy, and they were distributed essentially at random among individual genes. Only seven genes contained a significant excess of nonsynonymous SNP, suggesting that the fixation of SNPs mainly arises via neutral processes, such as genetic drift, rather than Darwinian selection. However, the rate of fixation varies dramatically over the genealogy: the number of SNPs accumulated by different lineages was highly variable and the genealogy contains multiple polytomies, one of which resulted in four branches near the time of the Black Death. We suggest that demographic changes can affect the speed of evolution in epidemic pathogens even in the absence of natural selection, and hypothesize that neutral SNPs are fixed rapidly during intermittent epidemics and outbreaks.infectious disease | molecular clock | phylogenomics | NGS | molecular epidemiology

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical variations in mutation rate in an epidemic pathogen, Yersinia pestis

Cui

Yan

et al. 2012

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

355

442

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“…In either a freshwater or saltwater environment, cyanophages are ubiquitous and play an important role in water ecosystems (46,52,61,66). Generally, the complete genome sequences of cyanophages can provide significant clues for better understanding of the biological properties, ecological effects, and coevolutionary relationships between cyanophages and their hosts (10,17,18,21,27,29). Some cyanophage genomes have been sequenced (32,35,44,49,51,60,64), which has revealed the presence of cyanobacterial genes involved in central energy metabolism and their host's survival.…”

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confidence: 99%

A Novel Cyanophage with a Cyanobacterial Nonbleaching Protein A Gene in the Genome

Gao

Gui

Zhang

2012

J Virol

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A cyanophage, PaV-LD, has been isolated from harmful filamentous cyanobacterium Planktothrix agardhii in Lake Donghu, a shallow freshwater lake in China. Here, we present the cyanophage's genomic organization and major structural proteins. The genome is a 95,299-bp-long, linear double-stranded DNA and contains 142 potential genes. BLAST searches revealed 29 proteins of known function in cyanophages, cyanobacteria, or bacteria. Thirteen major structural proteins ranging in size from 27 kDa to 172 kDa were identified by SDS-PAGE and mass-spectrometric analysis. The genome lacks major genes that are necessary to the tail structure, and the tailless PaV-LD has been confirmed by an electron microscopy comparison with other tail cyanophages and phages. Phylogenetic analysis of the major capsid proteins also reveals an independent branch of PaV-LD that is quite different from other known tail cyanophages and phages. Moreover, the unique genome carries a nonbleaching protein A (NblA) gene (open reading frame [ORF] 022L), which is present in all phycobilisome-containing organisms and mediates phycobilisome degradation. Western blot detection confirmed that 022L was expressed after PaV-LD infection in the host filamentous cyanobacterium. In addition, its appearance was companied by a significant decline of phycocyanobilin content and a color change of the cyanobacterial cells from blue-green to yellow-green. The biological function of PaV-LD nblA was further confirmed by expression in a model cyanobacterium via an integration platform, by spectroscopic analysis and electron microscopy observation. The data indicate that PaV-LD is an exceptional cyanophage of filamentous cyanobacteria, and this novel cyanophage will also provide us with a new vision of the cyanophage-host interactions. Cyanophages are one kind of planktonic viruses that infect cyanobacteria (blue-green algae). Cyanophages and phages have amazing amounts of genetic diversity and biological activity in water environments (33,34,40,54). In either a freshwater or saltwater environment, cyanophages are ubiquitous and play an important role in water ecosystems (46,52,61,66). Generally, the complete genome sequences of cyanophages can provide significant clues for better understanding of the biological properties, ecological effects, and coevolutionary relationships between cyanophages and their hosts (10,17,18,21,27,29). Some cyanophage genomes have been sequenced (32,35,44,49,51,60,64), which has revealed the presence of cyanobacterial genes involved in central energy metabolism and their host's survival. For examples, some photosynthesis-related genes (psbA, hliP, and PSII) and stress-response genes (coding for chaperones and genes associated with bacterial motility and chemotaxis) have been described in cyanophages (4, 5, 31, 36, 47), most of which are transcribed together with essential cyanophage replication-related genes (6, 13, 30, 65). Moreover, a nonbleaching protein A (NblA) gene has been found from a lytic phage, Ma-LMM01, infecting Microcystis aerugi...

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“…This was demonstrated for coliphage fd, which can use pIII CTX to expand the host range to include Vibrio cholerae (12), and for Yersinia pestis phage Ypf⌽, which is able to replicate not only in different strains of Yersinia but also in Escherichia coli (12). Horizontal transfer of filamentous phages across bacterial species could be very important, taking into consideration their role in the pathogenicity of bacteria (13)(14)(15)(16).…”

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confidence: 99%

Neisseria gonorrhoeae Filamentous Phage NgoΦ6 Is Capable of Infecting a Variety of Gram-Negative Bacteria

Piekarowicz

Kłyż

Majchrzak

et al. 2014

J Virol

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cWe constructed a phagemid consisting of the whole genome of the Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteriophage Ngo⌽6 cloned into a pBluescript plasmid derivative lacking the f1 origin of replication (named pBS::⌽6). Escherichia coli cells harboring pBS::⌽6 were able to produce a biologically active phagemid, Ngo⌽6fm, capable of infecting, integrating its DNA into the chromosome of, and producing progeny phagemids in, a variety of taxonomically distant Gram-negative bacteria, including E. coli, Haemophilus influenzae, Neisseria sicca, Pseudomonas sp., and Paracoccus methylutens. A derivative of pBS::⌽6 lacking the phage orf7 gene, a positional homolog of filamentous phage proteins that mediate the interaction between the phage and the bacterial pilus, was capable of producing phagemid particles that were able to infect E. coli, Haemophilus influenzae, N. sicca, Pseudomonas sp., and Paracoccus methylutens, indicating that Ngo⌽6 infects cells of these species using a mechanism that does not involve the Orf7 gene product and that Ngo⌽6 initiates infection through a novel process in these species. We further demonstrate that the establishment of the lysogenic state does not require an active phage integrase. Since phagemid particles were capable of infecting diverse hosts, this indicates that Ngo⌽6 is the first broad-host-range filamentous bacteriophage described.

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A horizontally acquired filamentous phage contributes to the pathogenicity of the plague bacillus

Cited by 83 publications

References 39 publications

Historical variations in mutation rate in an epidemic pathogen, Yersinia pestis

Historical variations in mutation rate in an epidemic pathogen, Yersinia pestis

A Novel Cyanophage with a Cyanobacterial Nonbleaching Protein A Gene in the Genome

Neisseria gonorrhoeae Filamentous Phage NgoΦ6 Is Capable of Infecting a Variety of Gram-Negative Bacteria

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