Staphylococcus sciuri bacteriophages double-convert for staphylokinase and phospholipase, mediate interspecies plasmid transduction, and package mecA gene
2017
Staphylococcus sciuri is a bacterial pathogen associated with
infections in animals and humans, and represents a reservoir
for the mecA gene encoding methicillin-resistance in
staphylococci. No S. sciuri siphophages were known. Here the
identification and characterization of two temperate S. sciuri
phages from the Siphoviridae family designated phi575 and
phi879 are presented. The phages have icosahedral heads and
flexible noncontractile tails that end with a tail spike. The
genomes of the phages are 42,160 and 41,448?bp long and encode
58 and 55 ORFs, respectively, arranged in functional modules.
Their head-tail morphogenesis modules are similar to those of
Staphylococcus aureus phi13-like serogroup F phages, suggesting
their common evolutionary origin. The genome of phage phi575
harbours genes for staphylokinase and phospholipase that might
enhance the virulence of the bacterial hosts. In addition both
of the phages package a homologue of the mecA gene, which is a
requirement for its lateral transfer. Phage phi879 transduces
tetracycline and aminoglycoside pSTS7-like resistance plasmids
from its host to other S. sciuri strains and to S. aureus.
Furthermore, both of the phages efficiently adsorb to numerous
staphylococcal species, indicating that they may contribute to
interspecies horizontal gene transfer.
Keywords:
- Correction
- Source
- Cite
- Save
- Machine Reading By IdeaReader
83
References
25
Citations
NaN
KQI