T4-like Bacteriophages Isolated from Pig Stools Infect Yersinia pseudotuberculosis and Yersinia pestis Using LPS and OmpF as Receptors.

Mabruka Salem,Mikael Skurnik,Maria I Pajunen,Jin Woo Jun

doi:10.3390/v13020296

Mabruka Salem, Mikael Skurnik + Show 2 more

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https://doi.org/10.3390/v13020296

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Abstract

The Yersinia bacteriophages fPS-2, fPS-65, and fPS-90, isolated from pig stools, have long contractile tails and elongated heads, and they belong to genus Tequatroviruses in the order Caudovirales. The phages exhibited relatively wide host ranges among Yersinia pseudotuberculosis and related species. One-step growth curve experiments revealed that the phages have latent periods of 50–80 min with burst sizes of 44–65 virions per infected cell. The phage genomes consist of circularly permuted dsDNA of 169,060, 167,058, and 167,132 bp in size, respectively, with a G + C content 35.3%. The number of predicted genes range from 267 to 271. The phage genomes are 84–92% identical to each other and ca 85% identical to phage T4. The phage receptors were identified by whole genome sequencing of spontaneous phage-resistant mutants. The phage-resistant strains had mutations in the ompF, galU, hldD, or hldE genes. OmpF is a porin, and the other genes encode lipopolysaccharide (LPS) biosynthetic enzymes. The ompF, galU, and hldE mutants were successfully complemented in trans with respective wild-type genes. The host recognition was assigned to long tail fiber tip protein Gp38, analogous to that of T-even phages such as Salmonella phage S16, specifically to the distal β-helices connecting loops.

Highlights

Yersinia pseudotuberculosis is a Gram-negative, zoonotic pathogen that occurs primarily in the northern hemisphere [1], and it causes yersiniosis which is manifested by fever, acute abdominal pain due to mesenteric lymphadenitis, and can be complicated with reactive arthritis and erythema nodosum [1,2,3]
When visualized under the transmission electron microscope (Figure 1), the phages were having long contractile tails with elongated heads suggesting that they belong to the genus Tequatroviruses, Myoviridae family under the Caudovirales order
In this work, we characterized three Y. pseudotuberculosis-infecting phages, fPS-2, fPS-65, and fPS-90, originally isolated from pig stool samples collected from Finnish pig farms [8]

Summary

Introduction

Yersinia pseudotuberculosis is a Gram-negative, zoonotic pathogen that occurs primarily in the northern hemisphere [1], and it causes yersiniosis which is manifested by fever, acute abdominal pain due to mesenteric lymphadenitis, and can be complicated with reactive arthritis and erythema nodosum [1,2,3]. Infection with Y. pseudotuberculosis is usually self-limited, it can be accompanied with bacteremia, gastrointestinal bleeding or acute kidney injury [4], and in some cases can be misdiagnosed with acute appendicitis leading to unnecessary appendectomy [1,2]. Periodic outbreaks of Y. pseudotuberculosis are not uncommon, and they are more frequent at schools and day-care centers, which is considered as a major health problem as huge number of students and children can be infected [1]. In Finland, Y. pseudotuberculosis infection is a notifiable disease [3], and most of the outbreaks are caused by fresh produce [1]. Y. pseudotuberculosis is composed of 15 serotypes, O:1 to O:15, of which serotypes O:1 and O:2 are further divided into subtypes a, b, and c, while O:4 and O:5 into a and b, respectively [6]

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