DNA homology in species of bacteriophages active onPseudomonas aeruginosa

Abstract

Using electron microscopy and DNA-DNA-hybridization, 113 virulent and temperate bacteriophages specific for P. aeruginosa have been assigned to 23 species. In most cases, especially in virulent phages, both particle morphology and DNA homology types were in good correlation and their use was sufficient for clear-cut definition of phage species. No virulent phages of different species had any DNA homology. DNA homology was detected between temperate phages of several species. Temperate phages formed two large groups of two and seven species, respectively. The first group included all transposable bacteriophages. The extent of interspecies DNA homology of phages belonging to each group was not more than 10-15% (except for 25% for phages D 3 and KF 1). No DNA homology was between phages of different groups. The possible origin and function of homologous sequences (genetic modules, linkers, occasional insertional sequences) are discussed. One of the phages (phi C 15) may be considered as the result of recombination between phages belonging to two different species, 295 and SM.

High Diversity and Novel Species of Pseudomonas aeruginosa Bacteriophages

“…S2 in the supplemental material). As was the case for other authors, DNA homology was not observed among phages belonging to different morphological families (4,26,28,44). Therefore, 12 species were identified among the 65 dsDNA phages analyzed: 2 Myoviridae, 9 Siphoviridae (4 of which harbored nonrestrictable DNA), and 1 Podoviridae species (Table 1).…”

“…These virulent myoviruses are distributed globally and have a broad host range, using the cell lipopolysaccharide layer as their primary receptor (25). No fewer than 42 phages of this species have been isolated and identified across Europe (28,37); this result evidenced its presence in Mexico. A second myovirus species in our collection was represented by PaMx12 (Table 1).…”

“…2). Since all known P. aeruginosa myoviruses are in the same homology group or species (16,28,37) and they share 61% RFLP identity, we took this threshold to define the groups shown in Fig. 2.…”

Comparison of the genome for phylogenetically related bacteriophages ϕKZ and EL of Pseudomonas aeruginosa: Evolutionary aspects and minimal genome size

“…Phages of the ϕ KZ family have been used as components of therapeutic formulations for a long time [11][12][13], because many of them infect P. aeruginosa strains resistant to other phages [14] as well as some Burkhodleria cepacia strains (our observations). The intracellular development of numerous ϕ KZ-like phages often takes place in the presence of P. aeruginosa plasmids that suppress the growth of phages of other species [15].…”

Common Preconditions for Safe Phage Therapy of <i>Pseudomonas aeruginosa</i> Infections

“…Abundance of different phage species active on P. aeruginosa [13] with more than 80 different phages with sequenced genomes available in NCBI database [14] confirms the possibility for choosing the active phages.…”