Exploring the Remarkable Diversity of Culturable Escherichia coli Phages in the Danish Wastewater Environment

TY - JOUR

T1 - Exploring the Remarkable Diversity of Culturable Escherichia coli Phages in the Danish Wastewater Environment

AU - Olsen, Nikoline S.

AU - Forero-Junco, Laura

AU - Kot, Witold

AU - Hansen, Lars H.

PY - 2020/9

Y1 - 2020/9

N2 - Phages drive bacterial diversity, profoundly influencing microbial communities, from microbiomes to the drivers of global biogeochemical cycling. Aiming to broaden our understanding of Escherichia coli (MG1655, K-12) phages, we screened 188 Danish wastewater samples and isolated 136 phages. Ninety-two of these have genomic sequences with less than 95% similarity to known phages, while most map to existing genera several represent novel lineages. The isolated phages are highly diverse, estimated to represent roughly one-third of the true diversity of culturable virulent dsDNA Escherichia phages in Danish wastewater, yet almost half (40%) are not represented in metagenomic databases, emphasising the importance of isolating phages to uncover diversity. Seven viral families, Myoviridae, Siphoviridae, Podoviridae, Drexlerviridae, Chaseviridae, Autographviridae, and Microviridae, are represented in the dataset. Their genomes vary drastically in length from 5.3 kb to 170.8 kb, with a guanine and cytosine (GC) content ranging from 35.3% to 60.0%. Hence, even for a model host bacterium, substantial diversity remains to be uncovered. These results expand and underline the range of coliphage diversity and demonstrate how far we are from fully disclosing phage diversity and ecology.

AB - Phages drive bacterial diversity, profoundly influencing microbial communities, from microbiomes to the drivers of global biogeochemical cycling. Aiming to broaden our understanding of Escherichia coli (MG1655, K-12) phages, we screened 188 Danish wastewater samples and isolated 136 phages. Ninety-two of these have genomic sequences with less than 95% similarity to known phages, while most map to existing genera several represent novel lineages. The isolated phages are highly diverse, estimated to represent roughly one-third of the true diversity of culturable virulent dsDNA Escherichia phages in Danish wastewater, yet almost half (40%) are not represented in metagenomic databases, emphasising the importance of isolating phages to uncover diversity. Seven viral families, Myoviridae, Siphoviridae, Podoviridae, Drexlerviridae, Chaseviridae, Autographviridae, and Microviridae, are represented in the dataset. Their genomes vary drastically in length from 5.3 kb to 170.8 kb, with a guanine and cytosine (GC) content ranging from 35.3% to 60.0%. Hence, even for a model host bacterium, substantial diversity remains to be uncovered. These results expand and underline the range of coliphage diversity and demonstrate how far we are from fully disclosing phage diversity and ecology.

KW - Bacteriophage

KW - Coliphage

KW - Diversity

KW - Escherichia coli

KW - Genomics

KW - Taxonomy

KW - Wastewater

UR - https://www.scopus.com/pages/publications/85090707527

U2 - 10.3390/v12090986

DO - 10.3390/v12090986

M3 - Journal article

C2 - 32899836

AN - SCOPUS:85090707527

SN - 1999-4915

VL - 12

JO - Viruses

JF - Viruses

IS - 9

M1 - 986

ER -