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PMID: 16116082 Published · ppublish English Journal Article Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

Marine T4-type bacteriophages, a ubiquitous component of the dark matter of the biosphere.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America ·Vol. 102 ·No. 35 ·2005-08-30 ·Pages 12471-6

Filée J, Tétart F, Suttle CA, Krisch HM

Abstract

Tailed bacteriophages are the most abundant biological entities in marine environments. However, most of these marine phages are uncharacterized because few of their hosts have been cultivated. To learn more about such phages, we designed a set of degenerate PCR primers for phage T4 g23, which encodes the major capsid protein in all of the T4-type phages, an important family of the tailed phage. These primers were used to amplify g23-related sequences from diverse marine environments (fjords and bays of British Columbia, the eastern Gulf of Mexico, and the western Arctic Ocean) revealing a remarkable level of molecular diversity, which in some cases was correlated with morphological variation of the virions. Phylogenetic analysis showed that although some of these sequences were closely related to well studied subgroups of the T4-type phage, such as the T-evens, the majority of them belong to five previously uncharacterized subgroups. These data indicate that the host range of T4-type phages is much broader than previously imagined and that the laboratory isolate T4 belongs to a phage family that is extraordinarily widespread and diverse in the biosphere.

MeSH Terms
Amino Acid Sequence Bacteriophage T4/genetics,isolation & purification Base Sequence Capsid Proteins/genetics DNA, Viral/genetics,isolation & purification Evolution, Molecular Genetic Variation Molecular Sequence Data Phylogeny Polymerase Chain Reaction Seawater/virology Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
Chemicals
Capsid Proteins DNA, Viral gp23 protein, Bacteriophage T4
Authors & Affiliations
4 authors, click to expand affiliations / ORCID
Filée Jonathan
Laboratoire de Microbiologie et Génétique Moléculaire, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Unité Mixte de Recherche 5100, 31062, Toulouse, Cedex 9, France.
Tétart Françoise
Suttle Curtis A
Krisch H M
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Article Info
Journal
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
Abbr.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A
ISSN
0027-8424
DOI
10.1073/pnas.0503404102
Published
2005-08-30
Epub
2005-00-22
Pages
12471-6
Language
English
Region
United States
NLM ID
7505876
PMCID
PMC1194919
Subset
IM
Databases
GENBANK
DQ105858, DQ105859, DQ105860, DQ105861, DQ105862, DQ105863, DQ105864, DQ105865, DQ105866, DQ105867, DQ105868, DQ105869, DQ105870, DQ105871, DQ105872, DQ105873, DQ105874, DQ105875, DQ105876, DQ105877, DQ105878, DQ105879, DQ105880, DQ105881, DQ105882, DQ105883, DQ105884, DQ105885, DQ105886, DQ105887, DQ105888, DQ105889, DQ105890, DQ105891, DQ105892, DQ105893, DQ105894, DQ105895, DQ105896, DQ105897, DQ105898, DQ105899, DQ105900, DQ105901, DQ105902, DQ105903, DQ105904, DQ105905, DQ105906, DQ105907, DQ105908, DQ105909, DQ105910, DQ105911, DQ105912, DQ105913, DQ105914, DQ105915, DQ105916, DQ105917, DQ105918, DQ105919, DQ105920, DQ105921, DQ105922, DQ105923, DQ105924, DQ105925, DQ105926, DQ105927, DQ105928, DQ105929, DQ105930, DQ105931, DQ105932, DQ105933, DQ105934, DQ105935, DQ105936, DQ105937, DQ105938, DQ105939, DQ105940, DQ105941, DQ105942
External Links
PubMed source DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0503404102 PMC Full Text View journal details
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