Analysis of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Isolates from Patients with Cystic Fibrosis Revealed Novel Groups of Filamentous Bacteriophages

Abstract

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is an opportunistic pathogen that can cause infections in humans, especially in hospital patients with compromised host defence mechanisms, including patients with cystic fibrosis. Filamentous bacteriophages represent a group of single-stranded DNA viruses infecting different bacteria, including P. aeruginosa and other human and animal pathogens; many of them can replicate when integrated into the bacterial chromosome. Filamentous bacteriophages can contribute to the virulence of P. aeruginosa and influence the course of the disease. There are just a few isolated and officially classified filamentous bacteriophages infecting P. aeruginosa, but genomic studies indicated the frequent occurrence of integrated prophages in many P. aeruginosa genomes. An analysis of sequenced genomes of P. aeruginosa isolated from upper respiratory tract (throat and nasal swabs) and sputum specimens collected from Russian patients with cystic fibrosis indicated a higher diversity of filamentous bacteriophages than first thought. A detailed analysis of predicted bacterial proteins revealed prophage regions representing the filamentous phages known to be quite distantly related to known phages. Genomic comparisons and phylogenetic studies enabled the proposal of several new taxonomic groups of filamentous bacteriophages.

Polysaccharides induce deep-seaLentisphaeraestrains to release chronic bacteriophages

“…All the accession numbers were listed in the Supplementary Table 6. The maximum likelihood phylogenetic trees of Phage-WC36-1 were constructed based on the zona occludens toxin (Zot) and single-stranded DNA-binding protein (Zeng et al, 2021; Evseev et al, 2023). The maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree of Phage-WC36-2 and Phage-zth2-2 was constructed based on the terminase large subunit protein ( terL ).…”