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Khot V, Strous M, Dong X, Kiesser AK. Viral diversity and dynamics and CRISPR-Cas-mediated immunity in a robust alkaliphilic cyanobacterial consortium. Microbiol Spectr 2023; 11:e0221723. [PMID: 37819096 PMCID: PMC10715143 DOI: 10.1128/spectrum.02217-23] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/31/2023] [Accepted: 08/25/2023] [Indexed: 10/13/2023] Open
Abstract
IMPORTANCE Biotechnology applications utilizing the function of microbial communities have become increasingly important solutions as we strive for sustainable applications. Although viral infections are known to have a significant impact on microbial turnover and nutrient cycling, viral dynamics have remained largely overlooked in these engineered communities. Predatory perturbations to the functional stability of these microbial biotechnology applications must be investigated in order to design more robust applications. In this study, we closely examine virus-microbe dynamics in a model microbial community used in a biotechnology application. Our findings suggest that viral dynamics change significantly with environmental conditions and that microbial immunity may play an important role in maintaining functional stability. We present this study as a comprehensive template for other researchers interested in exploring predatory dynamics in engineered microbial communities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Varada Khot
- Department of Geoscience, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
| | - Marc Strous
- Department of Geoscience, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
| | - Xiaoli Dong
- Department of Geoscience, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
- Public Health Laboratory, Alberta Precision Laboratories, Foothills Medical Centre, Calgary, Alberta, Canada
| | - Alyse K. Kiesser
- School of Engineering, University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada
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2
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Trubl G, Stedman KM, Bywaters KF, Matula EE, Sommers P, Roux S, Merino N, Yin J, Kaelber JT, Avila-Herrera A, Johnson PA, Johnson JC, Borges S, Weber PK, Pett-Ridge J, Boston PJ. Astrovirology: how viruses enhance our understanding of life in the Universe. INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ASTROBIOLOGY 2023; 22:247-271. [PMID: 38046673 PMCID: PMC10691837 DOI: 10.1017/s1473550423000058] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 12/05/2023]
Abstract
Viruses are the most numerically abundant biological entities on Earth. As ubiquitous replicators of molecular information and agents of community change, viruses have potent effects on the life on Earth, and may play a critical role in human spaceflight, for life-detection missions to other planetary bodies and planetary protection. However, major knowledge gaps constrain our understanding of the Earth's virosphere: (1) the role viruses play in biogeochemical cycles, (2) the origin(s) of viruses and (3) the involvement of viruses in the evolution, distribution and persistence of life. As viruses are the only replicators that span all known types of nucleic acids, an expanded experimental and theoretical toolbox built for Earth's viruses will be pivotal for detecting and understanding life on Earth and beyond. Only by filling in these knowledge and technical gaps we will obtain an inclusive assessment of how to distinguish and detect life on other planetary surfaces. Meanwhile, space exploration requires life-support systems for the needs of humans, plants and their microbial inhabitants. Viral effects on microbes and plants are essential for Earth's biosphere and human health, but virus-host interactions in spaceflight are poorly understood. Viral relationships with their hosts respond to environmental changes in complex ways which are difficult to predict by extrapolating from Earth-based proxies. These relationships should be studied in space to fully understand how spaceflight will modulate viral impacts on human health and life-support systems, including microbiomes. In this review, we address key questions that must be examined to incorporate viruses into Earth system models, life-support systems and life detection. Tackling these questions will benefit our efforts to develop planetary protection protocols and further our understanding of viruses in astrobiology.
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Affiliation(s)
- Gareth Trubl
- Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
| | - Kenneth M. Stedman
- Center for Life in Extreme Environments, Department of Biology, Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA
| | | | | | | | - Simon Roux
- DOE Joint Genome Institute, Berkeley, CA, USA
| | - Nancy Merino
- Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
| | - John Yin
- Chemical and Biological Engineering, Wisconsin Institute for Discovery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, WI, USA
| | - Jason T. Kaelber
- Institute for Quantitative Biomedicine, Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, Piscataway, NJ, USA
| | - Aram Avila-Herrera
- Computing Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
| | - Peter Anto Johnson
- Faculty of Medicine & Dentistry, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB, Canada
| | | | | | - Peter K. Weber
- Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
| | - Jennifer Pett-Ridge
- Physical and Life Sciences Directorate, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, Livermore, CA, USA
- Life & Environmental Sciences Department, University of California Merced, Merced, CA, USA
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3
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Sierra MA, Ryon KA, Tierney BT, Foox J, Bhattacharya C, Afshin E, Butler D, Green SJ, Thomas WK, Ramsdell J, Bivens NJ, McGrath K, Mason CE, Tighe SW. Microbiome and metagenomic analysis of Lake Hillier Australia reveals pigment-rich polyextremophiles and wide-ranging metabolic adaptations. ENVIRONMENTAL MICROBIOME 2022; 17:60. [PMID: 36544228 PMCID: PMC9768965 DOI: 10.1186/s40793-022-00455-9] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/25/2022] [Accepted: 12/01/2022] [Indexed: 06/17/2023]
Abstract
Lake Hillier is a hypersaline lake known for its distinctive bright pink color. The cause of this phenomenon in other hypersaline sites has been attributed to halophiles, Dunaliella, and Salinibacter, however, a systematic analysis of the microbial communities, their functional features, and the prevalence of pigment-producing-metabolisms has not been previously studied. Through metagenomic sequencing and culture-based approaches, our results evidence that Lake Hillier is composed of a diverse set of microorganisms including archaea, bacteria, algae, and viruses. Our data indicate that the microbiome in Lake Hillier is composed of multiple pigment-producer microbes, including Dunaliella, Salinibacter, Halobacillus, Psychroflexus, Halorubrum, many of which are cataloged as polyextremophiles. Additionally, we estimated the diversity of metabolic pathways in the lake and determined that many of these are related to pigment production. We reconstructed complete or partial genomes for 21 discrete bacteria (N = 14) and archaea (N = 7), only 2 of which could be taxonomically annotated to previously observed species. Our findings provide the first metagenomic study to decipher the source of the pink color of Australia's Lake Hillier. The study of this pink hypersaline environment is evidence of a microbial consortium of pigment producers, a repertoire of polyextremophiles, a core microbiome and potentially novel species.
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Affiliation(s)
- Maria A Sierra
- Tri-Institutional Computational Biology and Medicine Program, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA
- The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
| | - Krista A Ryon
- The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
- Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
| | - Braden T Tierney
- The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
- Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
| | - Jonathan Foox
- The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
- Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
| | - Chandrima Bhattacharya
- Tri-Institutional Computational Biology and Medicine Program, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA
- The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
| | - Evan Afshin
- The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
- Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
| | - Daniel Butler
- Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA
| | - Stefan J Green
- Genomics and Microbiome Core Facility, Rush University, New York, IL, USA
| | - W Kelley Thomas
- Department of Molecular, Cellular, and Biomedical Sciences, College of Life Sciences and Agriculture, University of New Hampshire, Durham, NH, USA
| | | | - Nathan J Bivens
- DNA Core Facility, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, USA
| | | | - Christopher E Mason
- The HRH Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud Institute for Computational Biomedicine, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA.
- Department of Physiology and Biophysics, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, 10065, USA.
- WorldQuant Initiative for Quantitative Prediction, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
- The Feil Family Brain and Mind Research Institute, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York, NY, USA.
| | - Scott W Tighe
- Advanced Genomics Laboratory, University of Vermont Cancer Center, University of Vermont, Burlington, VT, USA.
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Nagel TE, Mutai IJ, Josephs T, Clokie MR. A Brief History of Phage Research and Teaching in Africa. PHAGE (NEW ROCHELLE, N.Y.) 2022; 3:184-193. [PMID: 36793885 PMCID: PMC9917308 DOI: 10.1089/phage.2022.29037.inp] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 06/18/2023]
Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Theodore Josephs
- Department of Genetics and Genome Biology, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom
| | - Martha R.J. Clokie
- Department of Genetics and Genome Biology, University of Leicester, Leicester, United Kingdom
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Makumi A, Mhone AL, Odaba J, Guantai L, Svitek N. Phages for Africa: The Potential Benefit and Challenges of Phage Therapy for the Livestock Sector in Sub-Saharan Africa. Antibiotics (Basel) 2021; 10:antibiotics10091085. [PMID: 34572667 PMCID: PMC8470919 DOI: 10.3390/antibiotics10091085] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/06/2021] [Revised: 08/24/2021] [Accepted: 08/25/2021] [Indexed: 12/26/2022] Open
Abstract
One of the world’s fastest-growing human populations is in Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA), accounting for more than 950 million people, which is approximately 13% of the global population. Livestock farming is vital to SSA as a source of food supply, employment, and income. With this population increase, meeting this demand and the choice for a greater income and dietary options come at a cost and lead to the spread of zoonotic diseases to humans. To control these diseases, farmers have opted to rely heavily on antibiotics more often to prevent disease than for treatment. The constant use of antibiotics causes a selective pressure to build resistant bacteria resulting in the emergence and spread of multi-drug resistant (MDR) organisms in the environment. This necessitates the use of alternatives such as bacteriophages in curbing zoonotic pathogens. This review covers the underlying problems of antibiotic use and resistance associated with livestock farming in SSA, bacteriophages as a suitable alternative, what attributes contribute to making bacteriophages potentially valuable for SSA and recent research on bacteriophages in Africa. Furthermore, other topics discussed include the creation of phage biobanks and the challenges facing this kind of advancement, and the regulatory aspects of phage development in SSA with a focus on Kenya.
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Kazantseva OA, Piligrimova EG, Shadrin AM. vB_BcM_Sam46 and vB_BcM_Sam112, members of a new bacteriophage genus with unusual small terminase structure. Sci Rep 2021; 11:12173. [PMID: 34108535 PMCID: PMC8190038 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-021-91289-x] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/24/2020] [Accepted: 05/25/2021] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
One of the serious public health concerns is food contaminated with pathogens and their vital activity products such as toxins. Bacillus cereus group of bacteria includes well-known pathogenic species such as B. anthracis, B. cereus sensu stricto (ss), B. cytotoxicus and B. thuringiensis. In this report, we describe the Bacillus phages vB_BcM_Sam46 and vB_BcM_Sam112 infecting species of this group. Electron microscopic analyses indicated that phages Sam46 and Sam112 have the myovirus morphotype. The genomes of Sam46 and Sam112 comprise double-stranded DNA of 45,419 bp and 45,037 bp in length, respectively, and have the same GC-content. The genome identity of Sam46 and Sam112 is 96.0%, indicating that they belong to the same phage species. According to the phylogenetic analysis, these phages form a distinct clade and may be members of a new phage genus, for which we propose the name 'Samaravirus'. In addition, an interesting feature of the Sam46 and Sam112 phages is the unusual structure of their small terminase subunit containing N-terminal FtsK_gamma domain.
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Affiliation(s)
- Olesya A Kazantseva
- Laboratory of Bacteriophage Biology, G.K. Skryabin Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms, Pushchino Scientific Center for Biological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Federal Research Center, 142290, Pushchino, Russia.
| | - Emma G Piligrimova
- Laboratory of Bacteriophage Biology, G.K. Skryabin Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms, Pushchino Scientific Center for Biological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Federal Research Center, 142290, Pushchino, Russia
| | - Andrey M Shadrin
- Laboratory of Bacteriophage Biology, G.K. Skryabin Institute of Biochemistry and Physiology of Microorganisms, Pushchino Scientific Center for Biological Research of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Federal Research Center, 142290, Pushchino, Russia.
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7
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Viruses in Extreme Environments, Current Overview, and Biotechnological Potential. Viruses 2021; 13:v13010081. [PMID: 33430116 PMCID: PMC7826561 DOI: 10.3390/v13010081] [Citation(s) in RCA: 16] [Impact Index Per Article: 5.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/25/2020] [Revised: 12/14/2020] [Accepted: 12/29/2020] [Indexed: 12/27/2022] Open
Abstract
Virus research has advanced significantly since the discovery of the tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), the characterization of its infection mechanisms and the factors that determine their pathogenicity. However, most viral research has focused on pathogenic viruses to humans, animals and plants, which represent only a small fraction in the virosphere. As a result, the role of most viral genes, and the mechanisms of coevolution between mutualistic viruses, their host and their environment, beyond pathogenicity, remain poorly understood. This review focuses on general aspects of viruses that interact with extremophile organisms, characteristics and examples of mechanisms of adaptation. Finally, this review provides an overview on how knowledge of extremophile viruses sheds light on the application of new tools of relevant use in modern molecular biology, discussing their value in a biotechnological context.
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Decewicz P, Dziewit L, Golec P, Kozlowska P, Bartosik D, Radlinska M. Characterization of the virome of Paracoccus spp. (Alphaproteobacteria) by combined in silico and in vivo approaches. Sci Rep 2019; 9:7899. [PMID: 31133656 PMCID: PMC6536676 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-019-44460-4] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/11/2019] [Accepted: 05/17/2019] [Indexed: 12/19/2022] Open
Abstract
Bacteria of the genus Paracoccus inhabit various pristine and anthropologically-shaped environments. Many Paracoccus spp. have biotechnological value and several are opportunistic human pathogens. Despite extensive knowledge of their metabolic potential and genome architecture, little is known about viruses of Paracoccus spp. So far, only three active phages infecting these bacteria have been identified. In this study, 16 Paracoccus strains were screened for the presence of active temperate phages, which resulted in the identification of five novel viruses. Mitomycin C-induced prophages were isolated, visualized and their genomes sequenced and thoroughly analyzed, including functional validation of their toxin-antitoxin systems. This led to the identification of the first active Myoviridae phage in Paracoccus spp. and four novel Siphoviridae phages. In addition, another 53 prophages were distinguished in silico within genomic sequences of Paracoccus spp. available in public databases. Thus, the Paracoccus virome was defined as being composed of 66 (pro)phages. Comparative analyses revealed the diversity and mosaicism of the (pro)phage genomes. Moreover, similarity networking analysis highlighted the uniqueness of Paracoccus (pro)phages among known bacterial viruses.
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Affiliation(s)
- Przemyslaw Decewicz
- University of Warsaw, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Microbiology, Department of Bacterial Genetics, Miecznikowa 1, 02-096, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Lukasz Dziewit
- University of Warsaw, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Microbiology, Department of Bacterial Genetics, Miecznikowa 1, 02-096, Warsaw, Poland.
| | - Piotr Golec
- University of Warsaw, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Microbiology, Department of Bacterial Genetics, Miecznikowa 1, 02-096, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Patrycja Kozlowska
- University of Warsaw, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Microbiology, Department of Virology, Miecznikowa 1, 02-096, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Dariusz Bartosik
- University of Warsaw, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Microbiology, Department of Bacterial Genetics, Miecznikowa 1, 02-096, Warsaw, Poland
| | - Monika Radlinska
- University of Warsaw, Faculty of Biology, Institute of Microbiology, Department of Virology, Miecznikowa 1, 02-096, Warsaw, Poland
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