Pheno- and Genotyping of Three Novel Bacteriophage Genera That Target a Wheat Phyllosphere Sphingomonas Genus

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Bacteriophages are viral agents that infect and replicate within bacterial cells. Despite the increasing importance of phage ecology, environmental phages—particularly those targeting phyllosphere-associated bacteria—remain underexplored, and current genomic databases lack high-quality phage genome sequences linked to specific environmentally important bacteria, such as the ubiquitous sphingomonads. Here, we isolated three novel phages from a Danish wastewater treatment facility. Notably, these phages are among the first discovered to target and regulate a Sphingomonas genus within the wheat phyllosphere microbiome. Two of the phages displayed a non-prolate Siphovirus morphotype and demonstrated a narrow host range when tested against additional Sphingomonas strains. Intergenomic studies revealed limited nucleotide sequence similarity within the isolated phage genomes and to publicly available metagenome data of their closest relatives. Particularly intriguing was the limited homology observed between the DNA polymerase encoding genes of the isolated phages and their closest relatives. Based on these findings, we propose three newly identified genera of viruses: Longusvirus carli, Vexovirus birtae, and Molestusvirus kimi, following the latest ICTV binomial nomenclature for virus species. These results contribute to our current understanding of phage genetic diversity in natural environments and hold promising implications for phage applications in phyllosphere microbiome manipulation strategies.

OriginalsprogEngelsk
Artikelnummer1831
TidsskriftMicroorganisms
Vol/bind11
Udgave nummer7
Antal sider17
ISSN2076-2607
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2023

Bibliografisk note

Funding Information:
This research has been funded in part by research grants from the Novo Nordic Foundation (The MATRIX; grant no. NNF19SA0059348) for L.R., P.E.D., C.R. and L.H.H., and from the Villum Foundation (grant no. 00036150) for A.B.C.

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 by the authors.

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