Neisseria gonorrhoeae filamentous phage Ngo?6 is capable of infecting a variety of Gram-negative bacteria.

ABSTRACT: We constructed a phagemid consisting of the whole genome of the Neisseria gonorrhoeae bacteriophage Ngo?6 cloned into a pBluescript plasmid derivative lacking the f1 origin of replication (named pBS::?6). Escherichia coli cells harboring pBS::?6 were able to produce a biologically active phagemid, Ngo?6fm, capable of infecting, integrating its DNA into the chromosome of, and producing progeny phagemids in, a variety of taxonomically distant Gram-negative bacteria, including E. coli, Haemophilus influenzae, Neisseria sicca, Pseudomonas sp., and Paracoccus methylutens. A derivative of pBS::?6 lacking the phage orf7 gene, a positional homolog of filamentous phage proteins that mediate the interaction between the phage and the bacterial pilus, was capable of producing phagemid particles that were able to infect E. coli, Haemophilus influenzae, N. sicca, Pseudomonas sp., and Paracoccus methylutens, indicating that Ngo?6 infects cells of these species using a mechanism that does not involve the Orf7 gene product and that Ngo?6 initiates infection through a novel process in these species. We further demonstrate that the establishment of the lysogenic state does not require an active phage integrase. Since phagemid particles were capable of infecting diverse hosts, this indicates that Ngo?6 is the first broad-host-range filamentous bacteriophage described.

SUBMITTER: Piekarowicz A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3911633 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature