As the most abundant biological entities on earth, bacteriophages (phages) were considered as the antagonists of bacteria. With the rapid development of genomics and molecular biology technologies, a subtle and complex relationship between phages and their host bacteria has been uncovered. Prophage refers to an intracellular form of a bacteriophage, which is usually integrated into the hereditary material of the host. Prophage is ubiquitously distributed in bacterial genomes. It reproduces when the host does and can affect important biological properties of their bacterial hosts, such as virulence, biofilm formation and host immunity. Interestingly, prophages were also involved in regulating the lysogeny-lytic state by "monitoring" the quorum sensing of bacteria. Recently, anti-CRISPR proteins encoded by prophages were found, which attracts a lot of attention. In this review, we summarized the prediction, distribution, classification and functions of prophages to lay a foundation for further studying interactions between phages and bacteria.
噬菌体是地球上最多的生物实体,一直被认为是细菌的天敌。然而随着基因组学和分子生物学等技术的快速发展,人们发现噬菌体与宿主之间存在微妙而复杂的关系。前噬菌体是指溶原性细菌内存在的整套噬菌体DNA基因组,广泛分布在细菌基因组中,对调节细菌宿主生理具有重要作用,如参与调节宿主的毒力、影响生物膜形成、赋予宿主免疫力等。有趣的是,前噬菌体可以通过“监听”细菌的群体感应来调节自身的溶原-裂解状态。近年来,一些细菌中由前噬菌体编码的抗CRISPR蛋白的发现引起了人们对前噬菌体研究的关注。因此,对前噬菌体的研究可以为改造宿主和前噬菌体提供基础理论参考。本文对前噬菌体的预测、分布、分类及功能进行了综述,以期为进一步研究噬菌体与宿主间的关系提供基础。.
Keywords: anti-CRISPR protein; lysogenic conversion; prophage; quorum sensing; virulence.