Conserved termini and adjacent variable region of Twortlikevirus Staphylococcus phages

• Published in: Virologica Sinica Vol. 30; no. 6; pp. 433 - 440
• Main Authors: Zhang, Xianglilan, Kang, Huaixing, Li, Yuyuan, Liu, Xiaodong, Yang, Yu, Li, Shasha, Pei, Guangqian, Sun, Qiang, Shu, Peng, Mi, Zhiqiang, Huang, Yong, Zhang, Zhiyi, Liu, Yannan, An, Xiaoping, Xu, Xiaolu, Tong, Yigang
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English; Chinese
• Published: Wuhan Wuhan Institute of Virology, CAS 01.12.2015
• Subjects: antibiotic resistance; bacterial infections; bacteriophages; Base Sequence; Biochemistry; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biomedicine; clones; DNA, Viral - genetics; Drug Resistance, Bacterial; genome; Genome, Viral; hospitals; host strains; Medical Microbiology; methicillin; Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus - virology; Microbial Genetics and Genomics; Microbiology; Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; Oncology; phage;conserved; Phylogeny; Polymerase Chain Reaction - methods; region; Research Article; Sequence Alignment; Sequence Analysis, DNA; Staphylococcus; Staphylococcus aureus; Staphylococcus Phages - genetics; Staphylococcus Phages - isolation & purification; Terminal Repeat Sequences; termini;variable; Twortlikevirus; Virology; variable region; phage; conserved termini; Twortlikevirus Staphylococcus phage
• ISSN: 1674-0769; 1995-820X
• DOI: 10.1007/s12250-015-3643-y

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus(MRSA) is an increasing cause of serious infection,both in the community and hospital settings. Despite sophisticated strategies and efforts, the antibiotic options for treating MRSA infection are narrowing because of the limited number of newly developed antimicrobials. Here, four newly-isolated MRSA-virulent phages, IME-SA1, IMESA2, IME-SA118 and IME-SA119, were sequenced and analyzed. Their genome termini were identified using our previously proposed "termini analysis theory". We provide evidence that remarkable conserved terminus sequences are found in IME-SA1/2/118/119, and, moreover, are widespread throughout Twortlikevirus Staphylococcus phage G1 and K species. Results also suggested that each phage of the two species has conserved 5′ terminus while the 3′ terminus is variable. More importantly, a variable region with a specific pattern was found to be present near the conserved terminus of Twortlikevirus S. phage G1 species. The clone with the longest variable region had variable terminus lengths in successive generations, while the clones with the shortest variable region and with the average length variable region maintained the same terminal length as themselves during successive generations. IME-SA1 bacterial infection experiments showed that the variation is not derived from adaptation of the phage to different host strains. This is the first study of the conserved terminus and variable region of Twortlikevirus S. phages.