Phages carry interbacterial weapons encoded by biosynthetic gene clusters

Abstract

Phages carry interbacterial weapons encoded by biosynthetic gene clustersHighlights d BGCs can be found in temperate phages infecting certain human-associated bacteria d Almost all phage BGCs are bacteriocins, e.g., sublancin in Bacillus phage SPb d A BGC within SPb provides competitive fitness advantage for the lysogenized host

The Bacillus phage SPβ and its relatives: a temperate phage model system reveals new strains, species, prophage integration loci, conserved proteins and lysogeny management components

“…Aligning the core genome to existing SPβ prophage transcriptomes proved to be a valid strategy for the identification of the SPβ lysogeny management components. This strategy is of particular interest for other bigger prophages like SPβ, which bring several accessory genes actively transcribed from the dormant prophage and relevant for the host (Hemphill et al ., 1980; Dragoš et al ., 2020) (Table S5).…”

Phage co-transport with hyphal-riding bacteria fuels bacterial invasion in a water-unsaturated microbial model system

“…Temperate phages integrated in bacterial genome (i.e. as prophages) have been suggested to serve as agents of “bacterial warfare” [ 22 – 24 ]. In aquatic environments, lytic phages adsorbed to bacteria have been shown to facilitate phage infection of biofilm bacteria and to promote biofilm colonization by carrier bacteria [ 19 ].…”

Horizontal Transfer of Bacteriocin Biosynthesis Genes Requires Metabolic Adaptation To Improve Compound Production and Cellular Fitness

“…Even in environments such as the nasal microbiome, bacteriocin-producing strains remain rare, although the horizontal transfer of the responsible BGCs is possible, and competitive benefits of inhibiting competitors should be immense ( 1 , 10 ). Our study can explain why most BGCs remain rare among isolates of a given bacterial species.…”

“…Many staphylococcal isolates show inhibitory activity against a diverse range of human nasal commensals and pathogens ( 7 – 9 ). Interestingly, most staphylococcal BGCs appear to be associated with mobile genetic elements such as plasmids, transposons, insertion sequence (IS) elements, lysogenic phages, and chromosomal islands with G+C contents diverging from the genome average ( 1 , 4 , 7 , 10 ). This suggests that the BGCs are transferred between strains and lineages and create strain-specific rather than species-specific antimicrobial properties ( 1 , 11 , 12 ).…”