Abstract
Bacteriophage-mediated horizontal gene transfer is one of the primary driving forces of bacterial evolution. The pac-type phages are generally thought to facilitate most of the phage-mediated gene transfer between closely related bacteria, including that of mobile genetic elements-encoded virulence genes. In this study, we report that staphylococcal cos-type phages transferred the Staphylococcus aureus pathogenicity island SaPIbov5 to non-aureus staphylococcal species and also to different genera. Our results describe the first intra- and intergeneric transfer of a pathogenicity island by a cos phage, and highlight a gene transfer mechanism that may have important implications for pathogen evolution.
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Acknowledgements
We thank R Calendar for gifts of strains and phages. This work was supported by grants Consolider-Ingenio CSD2009-00006, BIO2011-30503-C02-01 and Eranet-pathogenomics PIM2010EPA-00606 to JRP, from the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (MICINN, Spain), and grant R01AI022159 to RPN and JRP, from the National Institutes of Health.
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Chen, J., Carpena, N., Quiles-Puchalt, N. et al. Intra- and inter-generic transfer of pathogenicity island-encoded virulence genes by cos phages. ISME J 9, 1260–1263 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2014.187
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/ismej.2014.187
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