Characterization of prophages in bacterial genomes from the honey bee (Apis mellifera) gut microbiome.

ABSTRACT: The gut of the European honey bee (Apis mellifera) possesses a relatively simple bacterial community, but little is known about its community of prophages (temperate bacteriophages integrated into the bacterial genome). Although prophages may eventually begin replicating and kill their bacterial hosts, they can also sometimes be beneficial for their hosts by conferring protection from other phage infections or encoding genes in metabolic pathways and for toxins. In this study, we explored prophages in 17 species of core bacteria in the honey bee gut and two honey bee pathogens. Out of the 181 genomes examined, 431 putative prophage regions were predicted. Among core gut bacteria, the number of prophages per genome ranged from zero to seven and prophage composition (the compositional

SUBMITTER: Bueren EK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10259446 | biostudies-literature | 2023

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature