2011/10/22 by Hong Xue, Yan Xu, Yan Boucher +1 · 1 citation
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Environmental Science · Immunology and Microbiology · Medicine · #Aquaculture disease management and microbiota #Bacteria #Bacteriophages and microbial interactions #Biology #Cholera #Environmental health #Genetics #Medicine #Microbiology #Population #Vibrio #Vibrio bacteria research studies #Vibrio cholerae #Vibrionaceae
paper · pdf · doi:10.1128/aem.06297-11
openalex publication_date 2011/10/22 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/06/26
Environmental Vibrio cholerae strains isolated from a coastal brackish pond (Oyster Pond, Woods Hole, MA) carried a novel filamentous phage, VCY, which can exist as a host genome integrative form (IF) and a plasmid-like replicative form (RF). Outside the cell, the phage displays a morphology typical of Inovirus, with filamentous particles ∼1.8 μm in length and 7 nm in width. Four independent RF isolates had identical genomes, except for 8 single nucleotide polymorphisms clustered in two regions. The overall genome size is 7,103 bp with 11 putative open reading frames organized into three functional modules (replication, structure and assembly, and regulation). VCY shares sequence similarity with other filamentous phages (including cholera disease-associated CTX) in a highly mosaic manner, indicating evolution by horizontal gene transfer and recombination. VCY integrates in the vicinity of the putative translation initiation factor Sui1 in chromosome II of V. cholerae. A screen of 531 closely related host isolates showed that ∼40% harbored phages, with 27% and 13% carrying the IF and RF, respectively. The relative frequencies of the RF and IF differed among strains isolated from the pond or lagoon of Oyster Pond, suggesting that the host habitat influences intracellular phage biology. The overall high prevalence within the host population shows that filamentous phages can be an important component of the environmental biology of V. cholerae.