Exploring the Remarkable Diversity of Culturable Escherichia coli Phages in the Danish Wastewater Environment
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Department of Environmental Science, Aarhus University, Frederiksborgvej 399, 4000 Roskilde, Denmark
2
Department of Plant and Environmental Sciences, University of Copenhagen, Thorvaldsensvej 40, 1871 Frederiksberg C, Denmark
*
Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Viruses 2020, 12(9), 986; https://doi.org/10.3390/v12090986
Received: 17 July 2020
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Revised: 24 August 2020
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Accepted: 31 August 2020
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Published: 4 September 2020
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Viruses of Microbes 2020: The Latest Conquests on Viruses of Microbes)
Phages drive bacterial diversity, profoundly influencing microbial communities, from microbiomes to the drivers of global biogeochemical cycling. Aiming to broaden our understanding of Escherichia coli (MG1655, K-12) phages, we screened 188 Danish wastewater samples and isolated 136 phages. Ninety-two of these have genomic sequences with less than 95% similarity to known phages, while most map to existing genera several represent novel lineages. The isolated phages are highly diverse, estimated to represent roughly one-third of the true diversity of culturable virulent dsDNA Escherichia phages in Danish wastewater, yet almost half (40%) are not represented in metagenomic databases, emphasising the importance of isolating phages to uncover diversity. Seven viral families, Myoviridae, Siphoviridae, Podoviridae, Drexlerviridae, Chaseviridae, Autographviridae, and Microviridae, are represented in the dataset. Their genomes vary drastically in length from 5.3 kb to 170.8 kb, with a guanine and cytosine (GC) content ranging from 35.3% to 60.0%. Hence, even for a model host bacterium, substantial diversity remains to be uncovered. These results expand and underline the range of coliphage diversity and demonstrate how far we are from fully disclosing phage diversity and ecology.
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Keywords:
bacteriophage; wastewater; Escherichia coli; diversity; genomics; taxonomy; coliphage
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MDPI and ACS Style
Olsen, N.S.; Forero-Junco, L.; Kot, W.; Hansen, L.H. Exploring the Remarkable Diversity of Culturable Escherichia coli Phages in the Danish Wastewater Environment. Viruses 2020, 12, 986. https://doi.org/10.3390/v12090986
AMA Style
Olsen NS, Forero-Junco L, Kot W, Hansen LH. Exploring the Remarkable Diversity of Culturable Escherichia coli Phages in the Danish Wastewater Environment. Viruses. 2020; 12(9):986. https://doi.org/10.3390/v12090986
Chicago/Turabian StyleOlsen, Nikoline S., Laura Forero-Junco, Witold Kot, and Lars H. Hansen. 2020. "Exploring the Remarkable Diversity of Culturable Escherichia coli Phages in the Danish Wastewater Environment" Viruses 12, no. 9: 986. https://doi.org/10.3390/v12090986
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