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Journal of Bacteriology, August 2009, p. 4854-4862, Vol. 191, No. 15
0021-9193/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.01272-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.

Comparative Genomic Analysis of Ten Streptococcus pneumoniae Temperate Bacteriophages{triangledown} ,{dagger}

Patricia Romero,1 Nicholas J. Croucher,2 N. Luisa Hiller,3 Fen Z. Hu,3,4 Garth D. Ehrlich,3,4 Stephen D. Bentley,2 Ernesto García,5 and Tim J. Mitchell1*

Division of Infection and Immunity, Glasgow Biomedical Research Centre, University of Glasgow, 120 University Place, Glasgow G12 8TA, United Kingdom,1 the Sanger Institute, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, Cambridge CB10 1SA, United Kingdom,2 Allegheny General Hospital, Allegheny-Singer Research Institute, Center for Genomic Sciences, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15212,3 Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Drexel University College of Medicine, Allegheny Campus, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15212,4 Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas and Ciber de Enfermedades Respiratorias, Ramiro de Maeztu 9, 28040 Madrid, Spain5

Received 10 September 2008/ Accepted 27 May 2009

Streptococcus pneumoniae is an important human pathogen that often carries temperate bacteriophages. As part of a program to characterize the genetic makeup of prophages associated with clinical strains and to assess the potential roles that they play in the biology and pathogenesis in their host, we performed comparative genomic analysis of 10 temperate pneumococcal phages. All of the genomes are organized into five major gene clusters: lysogeny, replication, packaging, morphogenesis, and lysis clusters. All of the phage particles observed showed a Siphoviridae morphology. The only genes that are well conserved in all the genomes studied are those involved in the integration and the lysis of the host in addition to two genes, of unknown function, within the replication module. We observed that a high percentage of the open reading frames contained no similarities to any sequences catalogued in public databases; however, genes that were homologous to known phage virulence genes, including the pblB gene of Streptococcus mitis and the vapE gene of Dichelobacter nodosus, were also identified. Interestingly, bioinformatic tools showed the presence of a toxin-antitoxin system in the phage {phi}Spn_6, and this represents the first time that an addition system in a pneumophage has been identified. Collectively, the temperate pneumophages contain a diverse set of genes with various levels of similarity among them.

* Corresponding author. Mailing address: Division of Infection and Immunity, Glasgow Biomedical Research Centre, University of Glasgow, 120 University Place, Glasgow G12 8TA, United Kingdom. Phone: 44-141-3303749. Fax: 44-141-3303727. E-mail: t.mitchell{at}bio.gla.ac.uk

{triangledown} Published ahead of print on 5 June 2009.

{dagger} Supplemental material for this article may be found at http://jb.asm.org/.

Journal of Bacteriology, August 2009, p. 4854-4862, Vol. 191, No. 15
0021-9193/09/$08.00+0     doi:10.1128/JB.01272-08
Copyright © 2009, American Society for Microbiology. All Rights Reserved.





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