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Microbiome

With a little help from my phage friends

Nature Reviews Microbiology volume 11, page 507 (2013)Cite this article

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In the complex ecosystem of the gut, gene exchange is likely to be widespread. Because phages can contribute beneficial genes to their bacterial hosts, the authors reasoned that these viruses might have an important role in the adaptation of the microbiota to stressful conditions. To test this, mice were treated with ciprofloxacin (a quinolone that inhibits DNA synthesis) or ampicillin (a β-lactam that inhibits cell wall synthesis) for 8 weeks, and phage DNA was subsequently purified from faecal samples and sequenced.

To determine whether antibiotic exposure selected for phage-encoded drug resistance genes, the phage metagenomes were compared to an assembled database of antibiotic resistance genes. This analysis showed that the phage metagenomes of antibiotic-treated mice were highly enriched for resistance genes compared with those of non-treated control mice. Interestingly, in addition to drug-specific resistance genes, both treatments led to the enrichment of multidrug resistance genes, suggesting that the phage metagenome contributes to the emergence of multidrug resistance. Furthermore, the authors demonstrated that ex vivo infection of a naive microbiota with phages from antibiotic-treated mice resulted in a 2–3-fold increase in the frequency of bacterial resistance compared with infection with phages from the untreated control group, confirming that the phage metagenome can transfer beneficial traits to their bacterial hosts.

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References

  1. Modi, S. R. et al. Antibiotic treatment expands the resistance reservoir and ecological network of the phage metagenome. Nature http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature12212 (2013)

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Authors
  1. Christina Tobin Kåhrström
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Sommer, F. & Bäckhed, F. The gut microbiota — masters of host development and physiology. Nature Rev. Microbiol. 11, 227–238 (2013)

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Kåhrström, C. With a little help from my phage friends. Nat Rev Microbiol 11, 507 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrmicro3070

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