Evolutionary relationships among diverse bacteriophages and prophages: all the world's a phage.
We report DNA and predicted protein sequence similarities, implying homology, among genes of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) bacteriophages and prophages spanning a broad phylogenetic range of host bacteria. The sequence matches reported here establish genetic connections, not always direct, among the lambdoid phages of Escherichia coli, phage phiC31 of Streptomyces, phages of Mycobacterium, a previously unrecognized cryptic prophage, phiflu, in the Haemophilus influenzae genome, and two small prophage-like elements, phiRv1 and phiRv2, in the genome of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The results imply that these phage genes, and very possibly all of the dsDNA tailed phages, share common ancestry. We propose a model for the genetic structure and dynamics of the global phage population in which all dsDNA phage genomes are mosaics with access, by horizontal exchange, to a large common genetic pool but in which access to the gene pool is not uniform for all phage.
Pittsburgh Bacteriophage Institute, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA. rhx@vms.cis.pitt.edu
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Hendrix
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Smith
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Burns
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Ford
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Hatfull
D001435:Bacteriophages / Q000145:classification* / Q000235:genetics* / Q000502:physiology; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003090:Coliphages / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D004279:DNA, Viral / Q000235:genetics; D004926:Escherichia coli / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology*; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D016680:Genome, Bacterial; D016679:Genome, Viral; D006193:Haemophilus influenzae / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D009161:Mycobacterium / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology*; D009169:Mycobacterium tuberculosis / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology*; D010802:Phylogeny; D012483:Salmonella Phages / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D013302:Streptomyces / Q000235:genetics / Q000821:virology*
D004279:DNA, Viral