Abstract
Prophages have been considered genetic units that have an intimate association with novel phenotypic properties of bacterial hosts, such as pathogenicity and genomic variation. Little is known about the genetic information of prophages in the genome of Streptococcus mutans, a major pathogen of human dental caries. In this study, we identified 35 prophage-like elements in S. mutans genomes and performed a comparative genomic analysis. Comparative genomic and phylogenetic analyses of prophage sequences revealed that the prophages could be classified into three main large clusters: Cluster A, Cluster B, and Cluster C. The S. mutans prophages in each cluster were compared. The genomic sequences of phismuN66-1, phismuNLML9-1, and phismu24-1 all shared similarities with the previously reported S. mutans phages M102, M102AD, and ϕAPCM01. The genomes were organized into seven major gene clusters according to the putative functions of the predicted open reading frames: packaging and structural modules, integrase, host lysis modules, DNA replication/recombination modules, transcriptional regulatory modules, other protein modules, and hypothetical protein modules. Moreover, an integrase gene was only identified in phismuNLML9-1 prophages.
Highlights
A prophage is a temperate bacteriophage genome integrated into a host bacterial DNA chromosome, which has the ability to enter a lysogenic state and replicate vertically with the host (St-Pierre & Endy, 2008)
Whole genome sequencing projects and comparative genomic analysis have revealed that prophage sequences are widespread among bacterial genomes, such as Moraxella catarrhalis (Ariff et al, 2015), Enterococcus spp. (Duerkop, Palmer & Horsburgh, 2014), Lactococcus spp. (Ventura et al, 2007), How to cite this article Fu et al (2017), Comparative analysis of prophages in Streptococcus mutans genomes
We report the functional features of the intact prophages in comparison with another S. mutans phage, M102AD
Summary
A prophage is a temperate bacteriophage genome integrated into a host bacterial DNA chromosome, which has the ability to enter a lysogenic state and replicate vertically with the host (St-Pierre & Endy, 2008). Prophages are an important source of virulence factors and other determinants that affect bacterial pathogenesis. Whole genome sequencing projects and comparative genomic analysis have revealed that prophage sequences are widespread among bacterial genomes, such as Moraxella catarrhalis (Ariff et al, 2015), Enterococcus spp. (Duerkop, Palmer & Horsburgh, 2014), Lactococcus spp. (Ventura et al, 2007), How to cite this article Fu et al (2017), Comparative analysis of prophages in Streptococcus mutans genomes. Very little is known about Streptococcus mutans prophages
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