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Rozwalak P, Barylski J, Wijesekara Y, Dutilh BE, Zielezinski A. Ultraconserved bacteriophage genome sequence identified in 1300-year-old human palaeofaeces. Nat Commun 2024; 15:495. [PMID: 38263397 PMCID: PMC10805732 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-44370-0] [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: 06/13/2023] [Accepted: 12/11/2023] [Indexed: 01/25/2024] Open
Abstract
Bacteriophages are widely recognised as rapidly evolving biological entities. However, knowledge about ancient bacteriophages is limited. Here, we analyse DNA sequence datasets previously generated from ancient palaeofaeces and human gut-content samples, and identify an ancient phage genome nearly identical to present-day Mushuvirus mushu, a virus that infects gut commensal bacteria. The DNA damage patterns of the genome are consistent with its ancient origin and, despite 1300 years of evolution, the ancient Mushuvirus genome shares 97.7% nucleotide identity with its modern counterpart, indicating a long-term relationship between the prophage and its host. In addition, we reconstruct and authenticate 297 other phage genomes from the last 5300 years, including those belonging to unknown families. Our findings demonstrate the feasibility of reconstructing ancient phage genome sequences, thus expanding the known virosphere and offering insights into phage-bacteria interactions spanning several millennia.
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Affiliation(s)
- Piotr Rozwalak
- Department of Computational Biology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, 61-614, Poland
| | - Jakub Barylski
- Department of Molecular Virology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, 61-614, Poland
| | - Yasas Wijesekara
- Institute of Bioinformatics, University Medicine Greifswald, Felix-Hausdorff-Str. 8, 17475, Greifswald, Germany
| | - Bas E Dutilh
- Institute of Biodiversity, Faculty of Biological Sciences, Cluster of Excellence Balance of the Microverse, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, 07743, Jena, Germany.
- Theoretical Biology and Bioinformatics, Science4Life, Utrecht University, Padualaan 8, 3584 CH, Utrecht, the Netherlands.
| | - Andrzej Zielezinski
- Department of Computational Biology, Faculty of Biology, Adam Mickiewicz University, Poznan, 61-614, Poland.
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2
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Buchholz HH, Bolaños LM, Bell AG, Michelsen ML, Allen MJ, Temperton B. Novel pelagiphage isolate Polarivirus skadi is a polar specialist that dominates SAR11-associated bacteriophage communities at high latitudes. THE ISME JOURNAL 2023; 17:1660-1670. [PMID: 37452097 PMCID: PMC10504331 DOI: 10.1038/s41396-023-01466-1] [Citation(s) in RCA: 7] [Impact Index Per Article: 7.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/02/2022] [Revised: 06/19/2023] [Accepted: 06/20/2023] [Indexed: 07/18/2023]
Abstract
The SAR11 clade are the most abundant members of surface marine bacterioplankton and a critical component of global biogeochemical cycles. Similarly, pelagiphages that infect SAR11 are ubiquitous and highly abundant in the oceans. Pelagiphages are predicted to shape SAR11 community structures and increase carbon turnover throughout the oceans. Yet, ecological drivers of host and niche specificity of pelagiphage populations are poorly understood. Here we report the global distribution of a novel pelagiphage called "Polarivirus skadi", which is the sole representative of a novel genus. P. skadi was isolated from the Western English Channel using a cold-water ecotype of SAR11 as bait. P. skadi is closely related to the globally dominant pelagiphage HTVC010P. Along with other HTVC010P-type viruses, P. skadi belongs to a distinct viral family within the order Caudovirales, for which we propose the name Ubiqueviridae. Metagenomic read recruitment identified P. skadi as one of the most abundant pelagiphages on Earth. P. skadi is a polar specialist, replacing HTVC010P at high latitudes. Experimental evaluation of P. skadi host range against cold- and warm-water SAR11 ecotypes supported cold-water specialism. Relative abundance of P. skadi in marine metagenomes correlated negatively with temperature, and positively with nutrients, available oxygen, and chlorophyll concentrations. In contrast, relative abundance of HTVC010P correlated negatively with oxygen and positively with salinity, with no significant correlation to temperature. The majority of other pelagiphages were scarce in most marine provinces, with a few representatives constrained to discrete ecological niches. Our results suggest that pelagiphage populations persist within a global viral seed bank, with environmental parameters and host availability selecting for a few ecotypes that dominate ocean viromes.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | - Ashley G Bell
- School of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK
| | | | | | - Ben Temperton
- School of Biosciences, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK.
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3
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Kupczok A, Bailey ZM, Refardt D, Wendling CC. Co-transfer of functionally interdependent genes contributes to genome mosaicism in lambdoid phages. Microb Genom 2022; 8:mgen000915. [PMID: 36748576 PMCID: PMC9836094 DOI: 10.1099/mgen.0.000915] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
Lambdoid (or Lambda-like) phages are a group of related temperate phages that can infect Escherichia coli and other gut bacteria. A key characteristic of these phages is their mosaic genome structure, which served as the basis for the 'modular genome hypothesis'. Accordingly, lambdoid phages evolve by transferring genomic regions, each of which constitutes a functional unit. Nevertheless, it is unknown which genes are preferentially transferred together and what drives such co-transfer events. Here we aim to characterize genome modularity by studying co-transfer of genes among 95 distantly related lambdoid (pro-)phages. Based on gene content, we observed that the genomes cluster into 12 groups, which are characterized by a highly similar gene content within the groups and highly divergent gene content across groups. Highly similar proteins can occur in genomes of different groups, indicating that they have been transferred. About 26 % of homologous protein clusters in the four known operons (i.e. the early left, early right, immunity and late operon) engage in gene transfer, which affects all operons to a similar extent. We identified pairs of genes that are frequently co-transferred and observed that these pairs tend to be near one another on the genome. We find that frequently co-transferred genes are involved in related functions and highlight interesting examples involving structural proteins, the cI repressor and Cro regulator, proteins interacting with DNA, and membrane-interacting proteins. We conclude that epistatic effects, where the functioning of one protein depends on the presence of another, play an important role in the evolution of the modular structure of these genomes.
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Affiliation(s)
- Anne Kupczok
- Bioinformatics Group, Wageningen University & Research, Wageningen, Netherlands,*Correspondence: Anne Kupczok,
| | - Zachary M. Bailey
- ETH Zürich, Institute of Integrative Biology, Universitätstrasse 16, Zürich, Switzerland
| | - Dominik Refardt
- Institute of Natural Resource Sciences, Zürich University of Applied Sciences, Campus Grüental, Wädenswil, Switzerland
| | - Carolin C. Wendling
- ETH Zürich, Institute of Integrative Biology, Universitätstrasse 16, Zürich, Switzerland
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Maidanik I, Kirzner S, Pekarski I, Arsenieff L, Tahan R, Carlson MCG, Shitrit D, Baran N, Goldin S, Weitz JS, Lindell D. Cyanophages from a less virulent clade dominate over their sister clade in global oceans. THE ISME JOURNAL 2022; 16:2169-2180. [PMID: 35726021 PMCID: PMC9381782 DOI: 10.1038/s41396-022-01259-y] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/02/2021] [Revised: 05/23/2022] [Accepted: 05/27/2022] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
Abstract
Environmental virus communities are highly diverse. However, the infection physiology underlying the evolution of diverse phage lineages and their ecological consequences are largely unknown. T7-like cyanophages are abundant in nature and infect the marine unicellular cyanobacteria, Synechococcus and Prochlorococcus, important primary producers in the oceans. Viruses belonging to this genus are divided into two distinct phylogenetic clades: clade A and clade B. These viruses have narrow host-ranges with clade A phages primarily infecting Synechococcus genotypes, while clade B phages are more diverse and can infect either Synechococcus or Prochlorococcus genotypes. Here we investigated infection properties (life history traits) and environmental abundances of these two clades of T7-like cyanophages. We show that clade A cyanophages have more rapid infection dynamics, larger burst sizes and greater virulence than clade B cyanophages. However, clade B cyanophages were at least 10-fold more abundant in all seasons, and infected more cyanobacteria, than clade A cyanophages in the Red Sea. Models predicted that steady-state cyanophage abundances, infection frequency, and virus-induced mortality, peak at intermediate virulence values. Our findings indicate that differences in infection properties are reflected in virus phylogeny at the clade level. They further indicate that infection properties, together with differences in subclade diversity and host repertoire, have important ecological consequences with the less aggressive, more diverse virus clade having greater ecological impacts.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ilia Maidanik
- Faculty of Biology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel
| | - Shay Kirzner
- Faculty of Biology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel
| | - Irena Pekarski
- Faculty of Biology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel
| | - Laure Arsenieff
- Faculty of Biology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel
| | - Ran Tahan
- Faculty of Biology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel
| | - Michael C G Carlson
- Faculty of Biology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel
| | - Dror Shitrit
- Faculty of Biology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel
| | - Nava Baran
- Faculty of Biology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel
| | - Svetlana Goldin
- Faculty of Biology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel
| | - Joshua S Weitz
- School of Biological Sciences, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA
- School of Physics, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA, 30332, USA
- Institut de Biologie, École Normale Supérieure, Paris, 75014, France
| | - Debbie Lindell
- Faculty of Biology, Technion-Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa, 3200003, Israel.
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Buchholz HH, Bolaños LM, Bell AG, Michelsen ML, Allen MJ, Temperton B. A Novel and Ubiquitous Marine Methylophage Provides Insights into Viral-Host Coevolution and Possible Host-Range Expansion in Streamlined Marine Heterotrophic Bacteria. Appl Environ Microbiol 2022; 88:e0025522. [PMID: 35311512 PMCID: PMC9004378 DOI: 10.1128/aem.00255-22] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/09/2022] [Accepted: 02/10/2022] [Indexed: 11/25/2022] Open
Abstract
The methylotrophic OM43 clade are Gammaproteobacteria that comprise some of the smallest free-living cells known and have highly streamlined genomes. OM43 represents an important microbial link between marine primary production and remineralization of carbon back to the atmosphere. Bacteriophages shape microbial communities and are major drivers of mortality and global marine biogeochemistry. Recent cultivation efforts have brought the first viruses infecting members of the OM43 clade into culture. Here, we characterize a novel myophage infecting OM43 called Melnitz. Melnitz was isolated independently from water samples from a subtropical ocean gyre (Sargasso Sea) and temperate coastal (Western English Channel) systems. Metagenomic recruitment from global ocean viromes confirmed that Melnitz is globally ubiquitous, congruent with patterns of host abundance. Bacteria with streamlined genomes such as OM43 and the globally dominant SAR11 clade use riboswitches as an efficient method to regulate metabolism. Melnitz encodes a two-piece tmRNA (ssrA), controlled by a glutamine riboswitch, providing evidence that riboswitch use also occurs for regulation during phage infection of streamlined heterotrophs. Virally encoded tRNAs and ssrA found in Melnitz were phylogenetically more closely related to those found within the alphaproteobacterial SAR11 clade and their associated myophages than those within their gammaproteobacterial hosts. This suggests the possibility of an ancestral host transition event between SAR11 and OM43. Melnitz and a related myophage that infects SAR11 were unable to infect hosts of the SAR11 and OM43, respectively, suggesting host transition rather than a broadening of host range. IMPORTANCE Isolation and cultivation of viruses are the foundations on which the mechanistic understanding of virus-host interactions and parameterization of bioinformatic tools for viral ecology are based. This study isolated and characterized the first myophage known to infect the OM43 clade, expanding our knowledge of this understudied group of microbes. The nearly identical genomes of four strains of Melnitz isolated from different marine provinces and the global abundance estimations from metagenomic data suggest that this viral population is globally ubiquitous. Genome analysis revealed several unusual features in Melnitz and related genomes recovered from viromes, such as a curli operon and virally encoded tmRNA controlled by a glutamine riboswitch, neither of which are found in the host. Further phylogenetic analysis of shared genes indicates that this group of viruses infecting the gammaproteobacterial OM43 shares a recent common ancestor with viruses infecting the abundant alphaproteobacterial SAR11 clade. Host ranges are affected by compatible cell surface receptors, successful circumvention of superinfection exclusion systems, and the presence of required accessory proteins, which typically limits phages to singular narrow groups of closely related bacterial hosts. This study provides intriguing evidence that for streamlined heterotrophic bacteria, virus-host transitioning may not be necessarily restricted to phylogenetically related hosts but is a function of shared physical and biochemical properties of the cell.
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Affiliation(s)
| | | | | | | | - Michael J. Allen
- University of Exeter, School of Biosciences, Exeter, UK
- Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth, UK
| | - Ben Temperton
- University of Exeter, School of Biosciences, Exeter, UK
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6
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Kauffman KM, Chang WK, Brown JM, Hussain FA, Yang J, Polz MF, Kelly L. Resolving the structure of phage-bacteria interactions in the context of natural diversity. Nat Commun 2022; 13:372. [PMID: 35042853 PMCID: PMC8766483 DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-27583-z] [Citation(s) in RCA: 32] [Impact Index Per Article: 16.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/10/2020] [Accepted: 11/12/2021] [Indexed: 12/12/2022] Open
Abstract
Microbial communities are shaped by viral predators. Yet, resolving which viruses (phages) and bacteria are interacting is a major challenge in the context of natural levels of microbial diversity. Thus, fundamental features of how phage-bacteria interactions are structured and evolve in the wild remain poorly resolved. Here we use large-scale isolation of environmental marine Vibrio bacteria and their phages to obtain estimates of strain-level phage predator loads, and use all-by-all host range assays to discover how phage and host genomic diversity shape interactions. We show that lytic interactions in environmental interaction networks (as observed in agar overlay) are sparse-with phage predator loads being low for most bacterial strains, and phages being host-strain-specific. Paradoxically, we also find that although overlap in killing is generally rare between tailed phages, recombination is common. Together, these results suggest that recombination during cryptic co-infections is an important mode of phage evolution in microbial communities. In the development of phages for bioengineering and therapeutics it is important to consider that nucleic acids of introduced phages may spread into local phage populations through recombination, and that the likelihood of transfer is not predictable based on lytic host range.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kathryn M Kauffman
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
- Department of Oral Biology, The University at Buffalo, Buffalo, NY, 14214, USA
| | - William K Chang
- Department of Systems and Computational Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA
| | - Julia M Brown
- Department of Systems and Computational Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA
- Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences, East Boothbay, ME, 04544, USA
| | - Fatima A Hussain
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
- Ragon Institute of MGH, MIT, and Harvard, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Joy Yang
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
| | - Martin F Polz
- Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA.
- Division of Microbial Ecology, Department of Microbiology and Ecosystem Science, Centre for Microbiology and Environmental Systems Science, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria.
| | - Libusha Kelly
- Department of Systems and Computational Biology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA.
- Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, 10461, USA.
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Occurrence and diversity of viruses associated with cyanobacterial communities in a Brazilian freshwater reservoir. Braz J Microbiol 2021; 52:773-785. [PMID: 33791954 DOI: 10.1007/s42770-021-00473-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/15/2020] [Accepted: 03/25/2021] [Indexed: 02/06/2023] Open
Abstract
As part of the phytoplankton of marine and freshwater environments around the world, cyanobacteria interact with viruses (cyanophages) that affect their abundance and diversity. Investigations focusing on cyanophages co-occurring with freshwater cyanobacteria are scarce, particularly in Brazil. The aim of this study was to assess the diversity of cyanophages associated with a Microcystis-dominated cyanobacterial bloom in a tropical reservoir. Samples were processed as viral fractions of water and cellular fractions, and temporal fluctuations in the abundance of Ma-LMM01-type cyanophages and their Microcystis hosts were determined by qPCR. We applied shotgun metagenomics to obtain a wider characterization of the cyanophage community. During the study period, Microcystis gene copies were quantified in all cellular fractions, and the copy number of the Ma-LMM01 phage gene tended to increase with host abundance. Metagenomic analysis demonstrated that Caudovirales was the major viral order associated with the cyanophage families Myoviridae (34-88%), Podoviridae (3-42%), and Siphoviridae (6-23%). The metagenomic analysis results confirmed the presence of Microcystis cyanophages in both viral and cellular fractions and demonstrated a high relative abundance of picocyanobacteria-related viruses and Prochlorococcus (36-52%) and Synechococcus (37-50%) phages. For other main cyanobacterial genera, no related cyanophages were identified, which was probably due to the scarce representation of cyanophage sequences in databanks. Thus, the studied reservoir hosted a diverse cyanophage community with a remarkable contribution of phages related to picoplanktonic cyanobacteria. These results provide insights that motivate future sequencing efforts to assess cyanophage diversity and recover complete genomes.
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Paving the Way to Unveil the Diversity and Evolution of Phage Genomes. Viruses 2020; 12:v12090905. [PMID: 32824934 PMCID: PMC7551783 DOI: 10.3390/v12090905] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 08/12/2020] [Accepted: 08/13/2020] [Indexed: 01/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Phage biology has been developing for the last hundred years, and the potential of phages as tools and treatments has been known since their early discovery. However, the lack of knowledge of the molecular mechanisms coded in phage genomes hindered the development of the field. With current molecular methods, the last decade has been a resurgence of the field. The Special Issue on “Diversity and Evolution of Phage Genomes” is a great example with its 17 manuscripts published. It covers some of the latest methods to sample and characterize environmental and host associated viromes, considering experimental biases and computational developments. Furthermore, the use of molecular tools coupled with traditional methods has allowed to isolate and characterize viruses from different hosts and environments with such diversity that even a new viral class is being proposed. The viruses described cover all different phage families and lifestyles. However, is not only about diversity; the molecular evolution is studied in a set of manuscripts looking at phage-host interactions and their capacity to uncover the frequency and type of mutations behind the bacterial resistance mechanisms and viral pathogenesis, and such methods are opening new ways into identifying potential receptors and characterizing the bacterial host range.
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