Filamentous phages are ubiquitously distributed in the global oceans. However, little is known about their biological contribution to their host's genetic and phenotypic diversity. In this study, a filamentous phage, Vaf1, was isolated and characterized from the emerging marine pathogen strain Vibrio alginolyticus AP-1. We explored the effects of the resident phage Vaf1 on the host physiology under diverse conditions by precisely deleting the entire phage Vaf1. Our results demonstrate that the presence of phage Vaf1 significantly increased biofilm formation, swarming motility, and contact-dependent competition. Furthermore, the gene expression profile suggests that several phage genes were upregulated in response to low-nutrient conditions. Unexpectedly, an in vivo study of zebrafish shows that fish infected with strain ΔVaf1 survived longer than those infected with wild-type strain AP-1, indicating that Vaf1 contributes to the virulence of V. alginolyticus. Together, our results provide direct evidence for the effect of Vaf1 phage-mediated phenotypic changes in marine bacteria V. alginolyticus. This further emphasizes the impressive complexity and diversity that filamentous phage-host interactions pose and the challenges associated with bacterial disease control in marine aquaculture. IMPORTANCE Non-lytic filamentous phages can replicate without killing their host, establishing long-term persistence within the bacterial host. In contrast to the well-studied CTXφ phage of the human-pathogenic Vibrio cholerae, little is known about the filamentous phage Vaf1 and its biological role in host fitness. In this study, we constructed a filamentous phage-deleted strain, ΔVaf1, and provided direct evidence on how an intact phage, φVaf1, belonging to the family Inoviridae, helps the bacterial host AP-1 to overcome adverse environmental conditions. Our results likely open new avenues for fundamental studies on how filamentous phage-host interactions regulate different aspects of Vibrio cell behaviors.
Keywords: Vibrio alginolyticus; filamentous phage; marine pathogen; phage-host interactions.