title: Variability in occurrence of multiple prophage genes in Salmonella Typhimurium strains isolated in Slovak Republic.
abstract: Lysogenic bacteriophages are a significant source of variability in closely related Salmonella strains. In this study, screening for diversity of 152 Salmonella Typhimurium strains was performed using PCR detection of selected prophage regions derived from phages P22, Gifsy-1, Gifsy-2, Fels-1, ST104 and SopEPhi. A high degree of variability was observed in the presence of specific genes. Based on the presence of particular prophage genes, we divided strains into 37 different PCR-prophage profiles; 20 of them were represented by only a single strain. Using multilocus variable number tandem repeats analysis (MLVA), 152 Salmonella strains were separated into 82 MLVA strings. Similar grouping of Salmonella strains was observed in the case of PCR-prophage detection and MLVA and the results corresponded well with the phage type of strains. However, several Salmonella strains were detected, which were closely related according to MLVA; yet, they differed in PCR phage profiles. The observations support a view that integration/excision of bacteriophages in Salmonella strains are frequent events shaping the bacterial genome.
authors.affiliation: Department of Molecular Biology, Faculty of Natural Sciences, Comenius University, Bratislava, Slovakia. drahovska@fns.uniba.sk
authors.forename: Hana
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Drahovská
authors.forename: Eva
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Mikasová
authors.forename: Tomás
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Szemes
authors.forename: Andrej
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ficek
authors.forename: Milan
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Sásik
authors.forename: Viktor
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Majtán
authors.forename: Ján
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Turna
mesh_terms: D001434:Bacteriophage Typing / Q000379:methods*; D005798:Genes, Bacterial / Q000235:genetics; D014644:Genetic Variation; D010802:Phylogeny; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D039002:Prophages / Q000235:genetics*; D012483:Salmonella Phages / Q000235:genetics*; D012486:Salmonella typhimurium / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics* / Q000821:virology; D017422:Sequence Analysis, DNA; D018154:Slovakia