Prophages and Past Prophage-Host Interactions Revealed by CRISPR Spacer Content in a Fish Pathogen.

ABSTRACT: The role of prophages in the evolution, diversification, or virulence of the fish pathogen Flavobacterium columnare has not been studied thus far. Here, we describe a functional spontaneously inducing prophage fF4 from the F. columnare type strain ATCC 23463, which is not detectable with commonly used prophage search methods. We show that this prophage type has a global distribution and is present in strains isolated from Finland, Thailand, Japan, and North America. The virions of fF4 are myoviruses with contractile tails and infect only bacterial strains originating from Northern Finland. The fF4 resembles transposable phages by similar genome organization and several gene orthologs. Additional bioinformatic analyses reveal several species in the phylum Bacteroidetes that ho

SUBMITTER: Laanto E 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7761591 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature