Background: Lytic bacteriophages that infect Campylobacter spp. have been utilized to develop therapeutic/decontamination techniques. However, the association of Campylobacter spp. and bacteriophages has been the focus of several strands of research aimed at understanding the complex relationships that have developed between predators and prey over evolutionary time. The activities of endogenous temperate bacteriophages have been used to evaluate genomic rearrangements and differential protein expression in host cells, and mechanisms of resistance to bacteriophage infection in campylobacters such as phase variation and CRISPR-mediated immunity.
Results: Temperate bacteriophage DA10 represents a novel excised and infective virus capable of replication in a restricted set of C. jejuni and C. coli hosts. Whole genome sequencing reveals that DA10 (35,379 bp) forms part of a novel group of temperate bacteriophages that have limited distribution among database host genome sequences. Analysis of potential host genomes reveals a robust response against DA10 and DA10-like bacteriophages is driven by CRISPR-mediated immunity with 75% of DA10 ORFs represented as ~ 30 bp spacer sequences in numerous Campylobacter Type II-C CRISPR arrays. Several DA10-like homologues have been identified in a small sub-set of C. jejuni and C. coli genome sequences (ranging from near complete integrated prophage sequences to fragments recognisable in the sequence read archive).
Conclusions: A complete intact DA10-like prophage in C. jejuni CJ677CC520 provides evidence that the associations between host and DA10-like bacteriophages are long-standing in evolutionary timescales. Extensive nucleotide substitution and loss can be observed in the integrated DA10-like prophage of CJ677CC520 compared to other relatives as observed through pairwise genome comparisons. Examining factors that have limited the population expansion of the prophage, while others appear to have thrived and prospered (Mu-like, CJIE-like, and lytic Campylobacter bacteriophages) will assist in identifying the underlying evolutionary processes in the natural environment.
Keywords: CRISPR-mediated immunity; Campylobacter bacteriophages; Campylobacters; Evolution; Lytic phage; Prophage.